Realizing I’m too old for some things (and being ok with it).

A couple of weeks ago an email came across my inbox in facebook entitled, “homecoming plans”. It was an email from one of my fraternity brothers who was organizing an alumni trip to SUNY Plattsburgh for this past weekend for the school’s (and my fraternity’s) annual alumni reunion. I hadn’t been up to one of these events in a few years and in all honesty I felt like I would be a little bit like a fish out of water at the prospect of partying and drinking with a group of 18-21 year olds, but decided since it had been so long since I had seen the other alumni that I would make the trip.

Insanity ensued.

I did party and drink excessively. That is kind of the point of going up for the weekend anyway, to re-live the times that we had as undergrads, even though guys like me (being one of the oldest in the fraternity) have been away from college for 7 years or more. But having a conversation with one of my “little brothers” in the fraternity (he is 10 months younger than me) got me thinking about how I’m past that part of my life.

• When the trip was brought up the first thing I would have thought about in the past was what sort of booze to bring along to make drinks with. — This time around, the first thing I thought about was where I would sleep. When I was told people were going to stay at the fraternity house or “crash wherever”, I immediately booked a hotel room in spite of the cost.
• I didn’t mind that the hotel room was over priced. — Plattsburgh, NY is not exactly a big tourist destination especially during the fall and spring semesters. The college decided to make homecoming weekend the same weekend as their annual family weekend visits to hopefully stem off any chance of the shit-show that would be thousands of drunken alumni walking around campus. Unfortunately that didn’t work, and since the local hotels now had 1 big weekend during the school year instead of 2, the prices for rooms were higher than usual. Still, when faced with the prospect of sleeping on a beer (and god knows what else) soaked couch in a building that should be condemned, $150 for the night seemed damn reasonable.
• Nobody else I knew from outside the fraternity was going up. — In the past when I had gone up for this weekend, I would always see at least a handful of people that I knew from outside the fraternity that I would also hang out with to kind of stretch the weekend out. That didn’t happen this time. When I talked to those people I would see via phone or facebook, they all said they weren’t going AND were surprised that I was. I guess they knew I was too old for it before I did.
• The conversations changed. — In speaking with the other older alumni, and even some of the younger ones, we talked more about things like buying houses, business engagements and planning boating trips than the drinking excess of our earlier years.
• The place had changed. — When I was in college the downtown bar scene was a crazy mess of college kids in packed bars, dancing and celebrating life. I went to those same bars and found it extremely easy to get through to get drinks and a room full of people sitting down watching a bar room television instead of dancing.
• When I left on Sunday, I had no desire to go back. — There were a number of times during the weekend that I felt like I was walking through a ghost house of my earlier years. Going up there it seemed like it hasn’t been that long since I was an undergrad, but after being there for a day I realize it was a lifetime ago.

In thinking about it, it’s a little sad to have grown up and beyond my college years because it really was the most fun I had in my life up to that point. There are plenty of memories of those days but nothing about that time in my life that I miss. I’m at a point where I have reached a respectable level on those things I had thought at the time seemed so far out of reach; things like a career, a nice car, a house of my own (pending), financial stability and an increasing wealth of experiences. Most importantly I’m building my life according to how I want it to be, and not based upon the expectations handed to me involving going to college, working hard and later finding a job. The ridiculous partying I did was a release from those pressures… pressures that I no longer have.  I can let go of that period of my life with the certainty that now I’m living much more to my liking and in a much more fulfilling way.

At one time in my life I was a leader of a fraternity, I was incredibly stressed out by school, I was a guy that partied 5 out of 7 nights each week, and a guy that could drink more than a dozen drinks in a night… but I’m not that guy anymore, and I’m pretty happy about that.