Age of reason

Emmy Jansen
MSMU Class of 2023

(1/2020) Ten years ago, I was eight years old and was halfway through the third grade. I had just started at a new elementary school and was in a class with a teacher who taught two of my older siblings. My mom worked at the front desk in the office and my sister was in a kindergarten class down the hall. What I remember most about that school was the bus ride. We were bussed to a different school than the one we should’ve gone to because I was in an academic program. That meant my little sister and I caught the bus out in the rural part of the county and drove up and down the old country roads until we got into the new, fancy neighborhood the school had been built in.

I was thankful for the long bus ride in because it took me on a tour of the place I’d always called home. Before coming to college, I’d only ever lived in one place. Driving the mountain roads here in Maryland, I find the similarities and the differences between where I’m from and where I’ve come to be. There’s a simplicity in the nostalgia of it and comfort in the known. But there’s also something enjoyable about making your own path. Even though I was the fourth of five kids, I was the first to go away. Everyone still lives in or around the town we’re from, except for me. I find myself with two homes and finding home in every place I go. The small country stores around Emmitsburg mimic those I used to pass on my way to elementary school. Frederick has flecks of the suburban village that was a staple of my high school years. But it is all new and while it’s familiar, it isn’t the same. It’s like getting into an accident and waking up with amnesia; I’m learning everything again for the first time. I’ve spent a lot more time thinking about the past. What were my parents like in their college years? What did my older siblings do with this new freedom? What happened in our lives to get us to these points?

If you had told me ten years ago that I’d be going to a small Catholic university in the mountains of Maryland, I don’t think I would’ve believed you. If you had told me that fact a year ago, I definitely wouldn’t have believed you. When I was eight, I wanted to be a lawyer. I don’t think I knew what a lawyer was, but I remember seeing the law firm commercials when I was watching Disney reruns and wanting to wear a nice suit and carry a briefcase.

For most of my life, I wanted to be a teacher. Towards the end of elementary school and all through middle school, that’s what I told everyone I was going to be. I would be a high school English teacher, or maybe history. I loved school, learning, and reading. I wear glasses today because I would stay up late at night reading books with the lights off, because my curiosity never stopped even when my mom told me to. I wrote, a lot. I carried a notebook with me everywhere I went, jotting down random notes and thoughts to be expanded upon later. I still do.

But freshman year came and went and so did my love for teaching. For the rest of high school, I bounced between ideas and none of them seemed to stick. Psychology made me happy for awhile until I learned I wasn’t good at science and I didn’t like it that much either. Business made sense until it didn’t, same with political science. As I write this having finished my first semester of college, I’m not sure if the answer to the question, "What do you want to do?" has gotten easier or harder.

Am I making eight-year-old me proud? I know I’ve disappointed her in one way; she thought she’d have at least two books published before graduating high school. Despite my failing, I think eight-year-old me would be happy to see who she became today and look forward to the future she has to grow into.

Eight-year-old me didn’t have much to worry about. I had homework, but I enjoyed it. Home was a nice place to be and playing with my siblings was probably the highlight of the day. I remember the room I shared with my little sister, how our toys would take over the room at times before we’d scramble to put them all away before bed. Things were fun, things were easy. But if I had the choice to go back to being eight, I’d never take it. No matter how hard things get in the present, it’s where I’m meant to be. I wouldn’t want to go back to being eight or fifteen or any age. I earned being eighteen.

When I started college, I was sent off with these words from my mom. "High school is the best four years of your life, but college is the fastest four years." She might be right, and she usually is, but I don’t want her to be. Yes, the five months I’ve been in college have been a whirlwind and it’s hard to believe it’s already over. But I refuse to let the four years I have behind me be the best I’ll ever have. The best years of your life should be the ones you’re living right now. I want them to continuously get better until they stop altogether. Reflecting on the past is healthy but I want to turn my gaze forward, into the life I have to look forward to. I didn’t know what the last ten years held for me and I don’t know what the next ten will have. Where will I be in 2030? Hopefully, I’ll have graduated college and work a steady job- doing what, I have no idea. Maybe I’ll be a mom, maybe I won’t be. That is the joy of living, never knowing what’s coming next and getting to find out. People will come in and out of our lives and time will march on. But it’s not about the minutes or the years that pass us by but what it is we do to fill them that really matters.

Read other articles by Emmy Jansen