Aug 28.

8/28/2025 9:54. Correspondence 13

 If I had to describe my day in short, it would be thus: I feel my age. I have felt so old today. Not necessarily physically, I am at peak physical fitness, but more so mentally. I have been feeling that nagging feeling in class all day, but it truly hit me when I was in the badminton club. I looked around and realized just how different this all is. How different it is from high school and daily life before. It hit me I was in a room full of adults playing batmitin, and I was an adult among them. Strange feeling, let me tell you. How your perspective could snap so violently from the past. I still had truly seen myself as the same little 9th-grade kid in gym class playing badminton. Passing time till we get to leave PE and go to something new. All that structure of that time is gone. Now it was me surrounded by strangers my age or older in a place where I walked to myself, being able to leave whenever I wanted. I could do anything. I can do anything. And that scares me. Still not quite used to all the freedom. Part of me misses that rigid structure. There is some strange comfort in being told what to do. When it's up to you to make the choices, making the wrong ones falls solely on you. I am so scared to make the wrong ones. I draw a lot of parallels to ideas of predestination and fate. There is something so nice about not having to worry about where you will end up. 

I don't miss it that much, though.  It is scary, yes, but also so incredibly exciting. I can do whatever I want. Go wherever I want. Study whatever I want. It is so beautiful. My fate is never set in stone. I can always try a new club or drop one if I don't like it. I can change my major or minor. I can choose every day where and what I eat. It's so good. There is also some strange comfort in these thoughts. After all, if you are careening towards a wall, it's much better to have a steering wheel in your hand.

That's all for now, goodnight, wonderful people.

Calvin Landreth