growing up

I went back to visit you. I only observed you from the outside, but you seemed different. The years must have separated us from each other. Even though you were no longer ours, there were still some of our emblems marked on you, some indications that you had been ours at some point in your existence.

But as I look to the future, I no longer see a paved path, a step-by-step guide to success, a daunting picture of who I should become. Instead, I see many potential paths, and in all of them, the path is open-ended.

As one continues in their college career, it is natural to grow a bittersweet relationship with their hometown. I feel so naturally at home but simultaneously the ghost of my youth — who I used to be taunts me. 

As educators and students move forward into this unknown world of technology, there must be a reminder and a gentle push to take time for ourselves and be taught by nature.

With adulthood comes a series of up and downs. We hear you, so without further ado, here’s the Clog’s power ranking of adulting activities. 

If you ever feel lost as a growing young adult, these songs are here to remind you that everyone goes through it and you’re not the only one experiencing a multitude of emotions.

It doesn’t snow in Berkeley. Growing up, I thought that was one of the city’s only downsides. Every year on July 4, we would go to the marina to watch the fireworks standing with thousands of our neighbors in the ocean’s cold breath. I stood reevaluating whether I really liked the cold at all and always decided that I did.

I resisted obsession of boy bands and MagCon boys, avoided indulging in makeup until I was in high school, and certainly didn’t claim pink as my favorite color. But why? Why was it necessary for me to avoid these things?

I’m undeniably homesick, feeling stuck at this crossroads of “in-between.” Yet there is something so wonderful, so bittersweet about being homesick. It allows me to come to terms with the fact that I’m in the process of finding a new home, yet “home” forever remains part of me.

somehow in the midst of my losing battle with time, I traded my ability to feel for disappointing wisdom in a deal I never remember making.