By the end of summer, I will be 21-years-old. That means I can order a drink at a bar, gamble at a casino, change my driver’s license, and go to nightclubs if I wanted to. In one month, I will have learned 21 years of life lessons. I know that if you ask someone who is older than me, they’ll tell you that 21 years isn’t a long time, and that I have my whole life ahead of me, but there are still some things that I have learned in the past couple years that I wish I had known back when I was first starting high school.

You could say I was naïve when I started high school. I was expecting to have the “typical” high school experience, the kind I read about in books and watched on TV However, that wasn’t the case. High school for me was a lot of sitting at my desk reading, hanging out with my small group of friends at each other’s houses, and spending too much time in my head instead of focusing on what was around me. I didn’t go to prom. I didn’t go to parties. I wasn’t really involved, instead I was the quiet kid who occasionally attended Art Club. My high school experience wasn’t remotely like one you would want to read about. Those are just hyped up, unrealistic fantasies, which was something I really should have known going into it.

Going off to college, I lowered my expectations. I was excited to be living in a different state at a school where I didn’t know anybody. It was a chance for me to start over and get involved, which I did. I was still really quiet, but I was in a committee, got a job on campus with a group I really liked, and I didn’t spend most of my time with my head in a book. While I really enjoyed my freshman year, I ended up transferring schools and heading back home for multiple reasons. This past year, I’ve focused more on school and my grades. I’m not as involved as I was last year, but instead my grades are my top priority. Even though I have lower expectations, I still can’t help but feel that I’m not gaining that “college experience.” It makes me wonder what my brain is doing wrong.

I’ve come to realize now that my problem is that when I’m about to have a new experience, I try to imagine every possible outcome in my head, and when what I imagined doesn’t happen, I am left disappointed. I wish someone would have taken me aside all those years ago and told me that life isn’t one big dream that is expected. It’s not a scenario I can imagine ahead of time. Just because I think something may happen doesn’t mean it will. I’ve now learned that we aren’t supposed to be able to imagine every situation in our lives, but instead be open to any possibility because the future is unknown.

Now, I’m soon to be entering my junior year of college. I’ll be 21-years-old. I can order a drink at a bar, gamble at a casino, change my driver’s license, and go to nightclubs. I can think about my future all I want. I can imagine how it will play out and what situations I will be faced with, but I will only find disappointment. Instead, I should be open to what may happen. I should prepare for the unknown, and I should learn to accept and appreciate what situations I am given.