Sleepover

Not too long after I moved in, one of my friends got married. In the tradition of girlfriends and weddings, she, a few of her bridesmaids, and our friends all slept over the night before the wedding at my house because despite its age and awkwardness of the family I rent from being here all the time, it's huge and furnished.

All in all, there were eight girls beside me, only five of which I had been expecting. One of them I had never met before and was the happiest, bubbliest, most talkative flakey smart person I have ever met. I didn't realize it was possible to be a flake and smart, but apparently it is.

She chattered the whole time with my chattery friend, and because they were both loud, no other conversations could go on, though I don't know how they were communicating. The only three topics they had in common were bridesmaid dresses, jewelry, and nail polish. They went through those in about five minutes, and then talked about their own personal topics with no overlap. Rebecca gabbed about Lord of the Rings and Star Trek, while Galen kept going "Oh just bring up something about Biology, because that's what I'm majoring in and I'll love you forever."

Apparently the two of them are becoming fast friends.

Another girl I had met before, but don't really like was also there. This girl, Anna, is perfectly nice, and by that, I mean that she's just that. Nice. She is sweet, polite, and well-mannered. She talks a lot. She's also very very homeschooled, which means that even two years after graduating college, she's still pretty conservative, slightly socially awkward, and sheltered.

My friend Rebecca brought a game called Cards Against Humanity, which is essentially a dirty version of Apples to Apples. The point of the game is to be as dirty and offensive as possible. It is no fun if you do otherwise.

We didn't get very far.

Galen and Rebecca chattered the whole time, Anna looked incredibly uncomfortable, and my married friend and almost-married friend snuck in talk about sex with their significant others, which made the rest of us uncomfortable.

Most of them went to bed early because most of them were part of the wedding and had to be up at a decent hour to get ready for the wedding, especially the bride, so it was a good deal quieter in my house than I was expecting a good deal sooner than I thought. I stayed up late because my mind and body both rebel if I think I should sleep any time before midnight.

When I got to bed, there was a pile of clothes that weren't mine because everybody had been using my room as a changing room, and a girl already in there. Without hesitation, I tossed everything I didn't need in my bed onto the floor, and climbed in next to my friend.

This friend of mine is tiny. She is five foot even, probably only weighs a hundred pounds, and routinely gets mistaken for a middle schooler.

Somehow she managed to take up the whole bed. The whole double bed.

Now, in the past, I've shared beds with stuffed animals (the most convenient of bedfellows), pets, siblings, and various friends. The pets are easy to push out of the way, and are pleasantly warm. The siblings and friends cannot be pushed out of the way, but they generally stay on their side of the bed and don't put out much heat.

This person, however, despite her tiny size, is her own space heater. Within minutes, I was kicking off all the covers but the sheet, because she moved over next to me the instant I got into bed. An hour later, I was grasping for covers again because she had pulled them all off of me when she rolled over to the other side of the bed. A little after that, I had to kick the covers off once more because she had rolled back over to my side.

Eventually my sleep-dazed and deprived brain figured out that just using my own blanket would keep her from taking my sheet again. I then successfully managed to sleep through the night.

And that is how I had a sleepover at my house.

Still don't know what I'm doing

Graduation is a strange thing. You spend four years at a school just so you can walk across a stage in a billowy black robe that makes you look like a ghost or a whale or an escapee from Hogwarts, and a ridiculous flat board of a hat with a tassel that's held on with bobby pins and magic. You get a folder that is supposed to hold your degree but doesn't, and then you're sent out into the world with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, optimistic and high-reaching dreams, and no real marketable skills. That's how they set you up to begin your adult life.

So after graduation, my family took me out to dinner, helped me move like three boxes into my house, and then left me all alone. The family I'm renting the house from was there so I couldn't have a total meltdown of tears and wailing, so I hid in my room, filled one drawer of the dresser with socks and snuck in a few tears while they ate their Chinese food and watched Monsters Inc (It's a long story of why they're using my house to eat food and watch movies. Hopefully they'll get a kitchen soon and won't invade as much).

Unable to stand the loneliness (and also totally wimping out of my first night in a giant house all by myself), I called my school friend whose family had rented a house and drove over there to stay with them. I have spent two days with them, leaving only long enough to go back to my house, finish filling the dresser with my clothes, and do a few marginally adult things like change my address and go to the bank. Then I accidentally (not really) found my way back to the internet and decided that was enough adulting for the day.

I'm done now. Is there a button I press when I've fulfilled my adultly duties? An adult quota maybe? Wherever it is, I've reached it. Maybe because my high-reaching dreams and debt allow me to wish only for a place to live, a working car, and decent food to eat.

I don't know how to do this!

May is an incredible month. The flowers start blooming, the days get warm (unless you live in the mountains and then the weather decides to be cold and contrary just to screw with you), and graduating seniors litter the country.

That will be me in just four days.

I will emerge from the safety and security of the cocoon of student status and become an adult who has to pay bills and work a full time job and be responsible.

WHAT.

I don't know how insurance works, I cannot comprehend taxes, I don't even know what I want to do with my life unless I can make a career out of professional sleeping. Why are people letting me make my own decisions? I'm barely even old enough to buy alcohol and now I'm allowed to live on my own without authority figures looking over my shoulder?

Whoever made that rule should be removed from office. I'm not old enough to be responsible for my own welfare. That is a preposterous notion. I'm a college student. That means I sleep whenever possible, ignore my homework until the very last possible second, keep irregular hours, watch movies until three in the morning, and act like an overgrown sugar-crazed five year-old. Five year-olds aren't allowed outside the house without supervision and yet I'm going to be in charge of the house.

Help.