Citizens of Auburn beware. Guard your mailboxes, your crepe myrtles and your beloved front yard oaks. Flameproof your holly bushes, your front porches and your lush, latent lawns.
I've got a Louisville Slugger, a plethora of toilet paper, a faulty 49-cent gas station lighter and a dog that poops in lunch sacks on command.
Most importantly, however, I have a newfound nostalgia for traditional juvenile delinquency that can't be satiated.
This isn't a self-destructive desire for jail time or an ingenious ploy to terrorize the entire city of Auburn without severe judicial consequences.
I'm simply having a Quarter-Life Crisis, and I want to feel young again.
Quarter-Life Crisis may not necessarily be the appropriate terminology.
As an optimistic professor remarked in a brief conversation the other day, it could be a 1/5 life crisis. I'm only 21, after all. With modern medicine and Taco Bell diets, I could live well past 100.
Or, depending on my overall luck, it could be a mid-life crisis. Pessimism and mystery are part of the fun.
Either way, I'm convinced that this stage of my life is comparable to your father's conventional mid-life crisis.
The parallels are endless. Probably. So far I've thought of three.
New sports car? Check. Look for me cruising around campus on a newly purchased longboard. I'll be the one crashing into your kneecaps.
Wardrobe makeover? Check it again, but with a dry-erase marker. I ditched my Converse for some snazzy sneaks with little alligators embedded on the sides that were sold to me by a man with a sweater tied around his neck.
Desire to drop responsibility in search of identity? You know what's coming. Make it a triple check (you're welcome for the new burger idea, Checkers).
Technically, nothing prevents me from wrapping my possessions in a tablecloth, throwing them over my back and walking into the world.
No major housing contracts to hold me back.
No flesh anchors (some people refer to them as "babies") to ground me.
I could legally forego my current scheduling demands in pursuit of personal insight without any requirement to return.
But, my parents wouldn't appreciate this. Neither would my friends. And, that's the conflict that embodies this late stage of youth.
Curiosity for life and fear of life are simultaneously present.
I've fallen into a routine, yet I'm unpredictable. I've considered wearing a tuxedo T-shirt to an interview. I didn't actually follow through, but the thought entered my head.
As I approach the end of my college career, I find my life open-ended, and I'm finally aware of its vulnerability. This time period is prone to rash choices and career-impacting decisions.
Maybe that's why I desire constant distractions from these decisions, whether they be hobbies, parties or brief bouts of harmless juvenile mischief.
I like being young with my whole life ahead of me, but I also want to make what's behind me once again palpable. Because I can't have both, I need something else, but I'm unsure what this something else is.
As Ryan Adams wrote, "To be young is to be sad (is to be high)."
I like being young. I just prefer youth without the baggage.
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