Right now I am living in this awkward stage where technically (and legally) I am an adult, but in reality I’m not. Sometimes we get this idea that legally being an adult is synonymous with legitimately being an adult. Just because you wake up one day and society says you are old enough to be on your own doesn’t mean you are necessarily ready. And I’m sure all of our parents would agree. My first semester in college was proof enough to me that adulting is a lot harder than it looks. As much as we like to tell ourselves that being in college far, far away from our parents gives us some sort of adult superpower, it doesn’t.
This semester was everyone’s favorite season: pledge season. Navy sports coats, khakis, and haircuts, I mean can you think of a more beautiful sight. Every freshman boy on campus would tell you they were in a frat until they went, “Well I mean I’m a pledge, but I can like take you to parties and stuff.” They are in this sort of transition stage where they are pseudo frat boys.
If adulthood was a fraternity, I would be a pledge right now. When I turned 18 I received my bid card to Alpha Delta Lambda Tau, my initial invitation to the wonderful world of adulting. From that moment on my pledge master (aka my parents, college, society, the whole world) has presented me with a series of grueling tasks and challenges to get me ready for initiation (aka the real adult world).
My ADLT pledgeship has not included deep cleaning a mud and alcohol encrusted house or setting up a tent in the Grove at the crack of dawn, not yet anyways. Instead I have been tasked with doing my own laundry, filling up my car with gas (are we shocked I didn’t do this in high school?), buying essential groceries and just generally being responsible for my own survival. Since becoming an ADLT pledge I can commonly be heard saying, “Pshh, I got this I’m an adult remember.” But let’s be honest, I got nothing.
Truthfully, I am probably on the brink of getting cut from pledgeship: I occasionally (more like 9 times out of 10) FaceTime my mom while doing my laundry out of fear that everything will come out pink and two sizes smaller, I avoid the gas station until I have 10 miles left in my tank, and my mother still wakes me up for school (thank the Lord for technology). But at the end of the day, I have come a long way since August in terms of adulting.
Pledge season is winding down across college campuses as boys are becoming brothers. I am starting to realize that my ADLT pledge season will continue indefinitely. Good news is I still have 7 semesters of college and college isn’t quite as real as the real world.