Second Guessing

The events from this weekend have gotten me thinking (a post is coming soon about the trip, I promise). I have a great group of girlfriends. We have a blast when we are together, always thinking of one another when we are apart and have a great friendship. I'm lucky.

I realized today, that I'm leading a 'double life'. At night and on the weekends, I'm a different C$. I'm wild, I'm drunk and crazy. It's fun and I love it, but it's not the C$ that got hired by the Firm or the C$ my parents probably want to know about. Don't get me wrong--I'm not complaining or looking for judgment--I love my life right now and am very happy and I'm fine with living a "double life" I think most twenty-somethings do the same thing.

However, I have to wonder, if I had been friends these girls or girls like them, would my college experience have been different (for better? or for worse?)

I'm not sure what the answer is to that question. I enjoyed my college career, but always felt like there was something missing (at least until I turned 21 and had a legit reason to drink).

My friends in college were all education majors like myself. We met freshmen year in our intro to ed class. For the most part, those in the School of Ed (SED) are one of two extremes. They are either 'typical future teachers' or wild girls that party waaaaay to much. I like to think I was in the middle, but for the most part, sided on the conservative (I was always the good girl in HS, the one involved in everything and didn't drink/do drugs at all), but I liked to go out and have fun. The girls I met were also very similar in our thinking, we loved going out and doing stuff, but being wild didn't appeal to us.

[I'm not sure if this is entirely true, now that I look back I wonder if us (mostly me) settled with what we did for 'fun' because it was safe. We were looking for friends and found each other and didn't venture outside of our little group.]

Needless to say there was very limited craziness freshman year. I had fun, but nothing to really write home about...

My sophomore year I lived with Meg. She had planned on moving off campus but at the last minute her parents pulled out their support for her apartment and she had to enter into the housing lottery. The only rooms left were in my dorm (~1 away from campus, on another college's campus) . Living with her changed my perspective on college life. It was great. I LOVED being her roommate and had a great sophomore year (she introduced me to flip cup!) and I'm so lucky that fate put us together.

Junior and Senior year I lived off campus with Meg and a couple other friends. Junior year, first semester was awesome. We had parties, we drank and always had a fridge full of beer all year round, it was great. And my freshman year friends (SB, S and KK) were still in my life and very good friends--they were my core group, but they hadn't exactly evolved much from their freshman year mentality. S was the first to turn 21 and would go out with my other friends and I (sans fake ID) because she liked to drink. Our other friend KK judged her and caused a lot of drama within the group over drinking (she didn't drink, or at least get drunk, until on Saturday night senior year).

I had a few friends that I would go wild with and loved having them around, but often felt like I was too much of a goodie good for them to remember to invite me out often, I was always an after thought.

Now that I am 2 years out of graduation, I look back with a smile, but can't help but wonder "what if?"
What if I had stayed friends with the girls I met the first weekend at school?
What if I had chosen a different major (one that was more conducive to partying) where would I be now?
What if I had made more of an effort to befriend others in SED that were outside of my comfort range, would I have enjoyed college more?
and lots others...

Now that I've found a great group of girlfriends that I think *get* me, I'm happy and realize that my girlfriends at college weren't as great as I thought they were. They were kind of mean and judgmental. The ringleader, KK, was able to bring in other people to the group, but when I tried to bring in Jenn, was shot down completely and they all ended up hating her and resenting me. And they were crappy to me. I always lived far away from them (for two years lived ~1 mile away from campus and you either had to walk or take the shuttle, which they all hated and for the last two years lived off campus when they lived at the other end of campus) and they used that as an excuse not to invite me to 'just hang out'. They'd all get together in their dorm rooms and chat, play games, etc because they were close together but never invited me 'cause they just assumed it'd be too much of a hassle for me. They also never came to my places b/c it was too far. Even when I lived off campus they hardly ever came over, I always had to go to their place.

I guess the lesson in all of this is not to live with any regrets. I do have regrets and there is simply nothing I can do about them, but live today with none, which I think I've been successful at so far. Those four girls I was friends with, I'm really only in contact with 2 of them and even that contact is shady. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's them. But all I know is that I'm tired of trying to make everyone be happy. Maybe I need to work on making myself happy for once...

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Well that was kind of a downer!

Still not done with the photo diary of Sunday's events, but here's something to pique your interest :)