lost time

i remember standing on my balcony of my new apartment. it was my first ever apartment and i shared it with 3 other guys. i stood there, phone in hand, typing away on my notes app. not an apology note, but a pros and cons list. i was at a major decision point and one that’d follow me for the rest of my life. and that i’d regret for the rest of my life.

i wanted to move. i didn’t truly know anyone in this town and its the same one i grew up in. i wanted to move to somewhere i knew i had someone close but i knew that wasn’t compatible with the vision people told me i had. instead of listening to my gut, i listened to the “so called experts”.

i listened to my guidance counselor, who told me it was a stupid idea to go to a community college first. i thought it was a great idea, i’d get to work on my basics and then transfer. i’d actually been to the community college through a dual credit program and genuinely loved the college. they are probably one of the best colleges out there. i loved it and i even knew the professors well.

it didn’t really occur to me that i was seen as a statistic. i was told to go to the “#1 cybersecurity school in the nation” since apparently i had that talent. i applied and got in, but that’s not what i really wanted. i never cared for college, but other people told me i should. experts told me i should and experts told me that i need to attend a university first.

i've never spoken about this publicly to anyone, even a therapist, so call this your anthonywritin exclusive scoop. i had a really really really hard time in college. it was the first time i sent myself to a psychiatrist and a therapist. this is in part of the fact i didn’t know how to handle being on my own. i didn’t know what to do. it was a lot to be thrown at me and i didn’t understand it.

i sat in multiple therapists office trying to understand everything around me. it was suffocating. it felt like a university branded pillow was being pushed into my face, struggling to breathe while i’m being told this is routine.

i told myself i was making the right decision. according to the experts, my guts were wrong. my life needs to be where i go to this university, earn my little degree, make all of these new friends, work for a local FAANG equivalent and that’s all life is cracked up to be.

everyone agreed on this plan, except for me. it didn’t sound correct and i knew moving away was the correct move. i toured a future apartment. i mapped out public transit options. it was feasible. it was the right call. it was my call.

except it wasn’t. the experts disagreed. i’m chasing something that’d fail within the first months they told me. i’d have a “rude awakening” and i was “sabotaging my career”. here i was, in the program for the best cybersecurity school in the nation (apparently) and…i was saying no.

“people would fight to be in your shoes and you’re giving it up?” was a phrase a therapist said to me. my academic advisor scoffed at the idea of me transferring. “they’re a no name school in the cybersecurity space. you realize that right?”

i’ll be honest, they broke me. suddenly my own gut was wrong. i had relied on it for years and over those years, it did its job. and it did it damn well.

i closed my notes app and realized what i called the pros were not worth the trade off. “you can always just, go to this school, get a good career, and do whatever you’d like after!” was the argument that really sold me.

but there’s one thing no one ever told me, and maybe it’s a purposeful neglect on their part, but it’s time.

“you don’t get those years back” is probably something you’ve heard in your lifetime before. it’s a 50 year old randomly making small talk with you while you’re picking up your groceries. it’s the 30 something you’re at the concert with saying they don’t have the energy for what you can do at your age.

that’s something no one ever told me.

i wasted my college years and watched as other lived the life i wanted. i never had my coming of age moment as everyone told me that hustle culture was better. everyone said id be wasting potential if i went the routes i wanted. i was “too smart” for that as one counselor said. i “shouldn’t make a dumb decision for someone so smart”.

college was cruel, isolating, and led to me dropping out. that’s a whole other story, but spoiler alert: i didn’t get that little degree, but i carry the trauma of the isolation due to the hustle culture. i had a full time job and was dual enrolled to speed up my degree. i told myself if i got as many credits as i could, i could speed up my degree plan and finally live the life i wanted. i just needed that resume everyone said i should have.

it broke me. i took 8 classes each semester, worked a full time job, and hated myself in my free time.

fast forward to 2024 and i’ve been given the opportunity that my gut realized was an what i needed. it felt like the opportunity to correct things. i could recreate the same experience i was robbed of. i was able to move to a city where i knew people. i had the job that lets me be more flexible. i wasn’t alone.

it felt as if the universe was giving me a re-do on life.

from 2022-2023 however, i built a life in NYC and it was a shock going to a life back in this new city. i felt like a kid again figuring things out for the first time, except i had a baseline of how things should be. it should be like how i imagined it originally.

except it wasn’t. this is adulthood and the post-teen, pre-adulthood era was already over. weekdays aren’t for clubbing and partying. they’re for decompressing after work and turning your phone off because your social battery is drained. it’s rescheduling calendar appointments to meet with friends. it’s having responsibilities.

it feels like a re-do, but at what cost?

i watch shows like adults or seinfeld and you have this group of friends who are them against the world. you’d think i’m a jerry seinfeld (or maybe you don’t) but i’m definitely an elaine.

these shows glamorize and romanticize this life that i so desperately crave, but it’s not one i’ve ever heard is actually real. i don’t think i know anyone who’s always ready to hang out, always there, and just, ready to do whatever. it’s the hangouts after work, it’s the casually going out for pizza, all of these things that feel so natural and organic in shows when in reality, none of that happens. even trying to do that with my roommate, who i live with, somehow doesn’t have the time to go out to eat.

“You live a very sad life” is a phrase i’ve heard people tell me before as if that’s a new revelation to me. it’s not, i’ve known this. and the second part of that phrase that “only you know how to fix this. only you are going to fix it” as if i truly can. i think everyone has just had the time im desperately craving that’s lost, either that, or they’re content with not having it.

i’m not content with it and i don’t know how to fix it. who says going to NYC is going to magically fix all of my problems. will moving to SF magically fix it? there’s no solid answer nor will i think i’ll ever get one.