Growing up as an only child wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Although people think being an only child means you get whatever you want, there is a dark side too — … dun dun dun — the feeling that you are always being left out.
As a kid, the only things that mattered to me were my Pokémon cards, my friend’s movie birthday parties and group playdates after school. I made an extra effort to be as social as possible to make up for the fact that my parents were kind of boring and that I lived in northern Virginia, whereas most of my friends lived in Washington, D.C. Every night when I came home from school, I always thought to myself, “Why am I in here doing homework, while all the other kids are out in the neighborhood playing?” I never really got to make friends with the kids in my community because I guess I never made time for it. I felt like I was missing out.
Every year that went by, I got more focused on school, and less focused on what made me happy — which, thinking back on it now, freaking sucked. I became busy making a path that led to the perfect college, and my collection of perfectly-laminated, color-coordinated Pokémon cards got stored away in the attic.
When I first got to college, I knew it was supposed to be awesome. I envisioned beer bongs, hot girls and parties that lasted until 4 a.m. That wasn’t really the case.
My first year, I was a recluse. I didn’t really join any CIOs because, like many other students, I was just overwhelmed by the massive number of groups on Grounds. I just didn’t know what to do with myself. I started trying to get actively involved in First Year Council, but I knew it just wasn’t enough.
At the beginning of second year, I knew that something needed to change. So I made an effort to try out for something new, University Guides. I wasn’t expecting to get it, but somehow I did, and I met some of my best friends. It really brought me out of my shell and got me to open up to classmates and even prospective students. But again, I knew I wanted even more.
Last year, one of the older members in my probationary class told me that I just needed to enjoy my time here at Mr. Jefferson’s university, because my time here would soon be coming to a screeching halt. He was living his fourth year, he said, according to FOMO — the Fear of Missing Out.
Obviously, I had no idea what that meant, and I couldn’t exactly look it up in the dictionary. One of my friends explained it to me as being similar to Murphy’s Law: if something could go wrong, it would. I interpreted that as if you didn’t go out, most likely it would end up being the best night ever. The image of the “Hangover” came to mind.
Now that I am a fourth year, and a quarter of my last year has come and gone, it has really hit me that I will start experiencing a lot of my lasts.
During the summer, I followed the coverage of the “recent unpleasantness” and I saw that The Cavalier Daily was doing such an incredible job. It really made me feel like I could be doing something awesome with my time, and I decided to tryout to be a columnist. If you’re reading this, I think you know what came out of that. It made me less fearful of trying out for things and confident enough to just do things on a whim sometimes. I realized the only thing stopping me from having an amazing last year was myself. So, I won’t let that happen. In the words of one of the most amazing actors of all time, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.” So open the damn box!
Al’s column runs biweekly Wednesdays. He can be reached at a.koroma@cavalierdaily.com.
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