Here I sit a week away from turn­ing 22 and a month away from grad­u­at­ing col­lege. Seniori­tis is almost full blown as classes become optional on sunny days and assign­ments are approached with a “C for degree” men­tal­ity. It has made me take a step back and look at the big pic­ture which I don’t think peo­ple do enough.

The first thing I see — I live a pretty awe­some life. I love it. I am thankful.

I’m earn­ing a great degree from a major uni­ver­sity with ease. I have a chal­leng­ing job teach­ing my peers that pays enough to cover the bills and a few drinks with my friends. I actu­ally have plans to get paid after grad­u­a­tion which is quite an accom­plish­ment in this day and age. I’m glad I’m not los­ing sleep wor­ry­ing about antic­i­pated job offers or grad­u­ate school admit­tance like most of my other friends. As my grand­fa­ther aptly said this Sun­day when I went and vis­ited, “Well Max it sounds like you’ve got it all planned out.”

It meant a lot com­ing from him because he’s a very suc­cess­ful man in his own right and I wasn’t so poised for grad­u­a­tion last time I was a senior. I grad­u­ated from high school by the skin of my teeth (not because I was a poor stu­dent, that story will be unveiled when I get my book deal) so I’m some­what anx­ious to do it right this time. It’ll be the first time I’ve been in a cap and gown since kinder­gar­den (I think my mom still has the pic­ture somewhere).

The other side to the “get across the stage” anx­i­ety is the feel­ing to cher­ish every day until then because life is really going to change for me this May. Last week I saw a friend from 1st grade and I hon­estly don’t when the next I’m going to see her. Another friend from first grade came down to go to Oliver Win­ery this week­end for his wine appre­ci­a­tion class and it was a great time. I went to Indy Tues­day night because I scored a pair of com­pli­men­tary tick­ets to a Pac­ers game (thanks @indianapacers!). Last night, my room­mate came into my room at 1:30am and con­vinced me to go to Blue­bird.

I’m going to miss the col­lege life. I’m thank­ful to have such triv­ial wor­ries, such great friends, and an even bet­ter fam­ily. Some­times it takes a lit­tle self-reflection to real­ize it, but I guess that’s what blog posts like this are for. On May 10th, I’ll start show­ing more of my excite­ment for my new life in Chicago but until then– senioritis.