Professional dreams fail miserably

By: Emily Hemson

Posted: 5/14/08

I received a letter in the mail this weekend.

Oddly enough it was a letter I wrote to myself four years ago.

Senior year in high school, my English teacher with all her hippie antics thought it would be a good idea for her students to write letters to themselves, and promised she would send them after four years had passed.

Four years have elapsed, and as such, the letter arrived in my parent's mailbox. My mom called me to inform me of my new mail.

"Would you like me to read it to you?" she asked.

I hesitated.

It became very strange all of sudden, that this letter existed. A letter that until that moment I hadn't even thought about.

"Alright," I said finally, "go for it."

After about two sentences of cheesy comments reflecting on the momentous occasion of graduating high school, the bombshell hit.

"You're probably singing in a band," my mom read aloud over the telephone.

"Seriously?" I stopped her. "Singing in a band? When was I ever even on track to sing in a band?"

"That is sort of strange," she replied.

Hoping for some validation to this very uncharacteristic profession I had confessed in the letter, I asked my mom to keep reading.

Unfortunately, at the time the letter was written I obviously saw no need to explain this new desire.

I don't even like singing in public. I played piano when I was in fourth grade, but quit soon after the woman teaching me had a nervous breakdown.

While I enjoy music, my abilities regarding it do not extend beyond pressing play on my iPod.

So where did this new future-life plan come from?

I began to think perhaps I had failed myself.

For many seniors, their college life is finally starting to end. While this could act as a source of sadness and make them begin to question whether a five-year graduation plan may have been a more successful thought, the looming reality of what is waiting after June is unavoidable.

When you graduate high school, the possibility of graduating college seems so far away and so completely separate from who you are; what could happen in those four years is almost impossible to predict.

Apparently I thought four years of college would alter my life so much, I would no longer posses both fear and a lack of tone.

Are four years of college really as long as they seem when you're 18 and graduating high school?

Have you given things up? Are you still following the same passions and plans you had when college seemed more like a possibility, and less like a chore?

This past weekend, while working on a project for a class, I was able to interview the lead singer of a band.

"Everyone's always saying how old they are," he began. "But they're in their 20s, and they're so consumed with this desire to make money and be grown up that they give up things they care about."

When he said it, I realized how very right he was.

Why is there such a pressure to give up the things you care about in order to make money when we're still so young?

If you wrote yourself a letter that you would get four years from now, how much will you have changed by the time you read it again?

As for myself, I have officially retired any plans I ever had of singing in a band.

I can only hope four years from now the plans I have for my future seem less like bizarre, random thoughts, and more tangible blueprints for life.

Emily Hemson is a senior in English. The opinions expressed in her columns do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Barometer staff. Hemson can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.