I graduated from college this May.  It is a really strange feeling to know that you have finished a degree and you don’t have anymore school if you don’t want to go further.  Technically I am a college graduate and I could go out and get a "real" job, but I really have no desire to that right now (or ever J).  So I decided to move, with my completely rational and logical thinking that this will, of course, solve everything.  I was going to stay in Gainesville for the summer and work where I had been working for the past two years, but then other things happened and I wanted to get out of Gainesville (I’ll refer to this later).  So a friend casually mentioned that I should go with her to Nantucket for the summer.  Well, she put this bug in my head that ate at my brain everyday until I decided to go.  Actually, I think that I decided to go as soon as she mentioned it, but I had to convince myself that it was the right thing to do. So now I am moving to Nantucket for the summer and hopefully working for a gardener there.  So I guess that I am getting a real job, at least it is for some people, but I don’t plan on doing this for the rest of my life.  I’ve also decided to go back to school next spring, or otherwise I am going (try) to join Americorps or the Peace Corps, both of which are tactics to delay the oncoming of the real world.

So, on one of my last days at work I read a speech that was sent to me by email.  The speech, entitled "Hindsight", was originally given by Guy Kawasaki, one of the founders of Apple Computers, at the commencement of a California high school.  I can certainly relate to these messages he gave to these high school graduates and I thought that I should share them:

    The other message that affected me was "Enjoy your family and friends before they are gone."  I think that Kawasaki mostly meant dead by "gone" but I am taking it another way.  I have been separated from my best friends for almost 3 years now and it has been terrible.  Now one of them may be leaving for 2 years and I may not get to see her before she goes.

        The other thing that I have learned about from preparing to move to Nantucket is that I have a lot of stuff.  An entire two bedroom house filled with my stuff that I accumulated over a period of about 2 ½ years.  It is amazing how much useless junk I have, but of course, nothing of which I wanted to get rid of.  (By the way, there is this great book called "Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things" published by the Northwest Environmental Watch (1997) that tells all about all the materials and chemicals that are involved in the production of common things like t-shirts, coffee and cola and how much energy goes into their production and how much waste results from it.  The book takes a light approach in informing about very disturbing facts.  An essential book for any environmentalist.)  So now I had to reduce my necessities to the airline-regulated three bag limit (which does not include my computer - which, pathetically, I would be much the worse without, and my bike, as both which were being taken to Nantucket by my friends; and my cats, because the airline doesn’t consider them part of the three bag limit).  Of course I needed my clothing and shoes, and daily necessities such as my toothbrush and toothpaste, etc.  But then I started adding so much more, like my CD player and CDs, and videos, and books, and more.  Inevitably I had much more than three bags.  So where is this all going?  Probably nowhere, but my stuff is going to my parents’ house (refer to Message #1).  Meanwhile, I still can’t believe that I will have at least 3 car loads full of non-necessities, excluding my furniture which I am giving mostly to my brother and to my… "roommate".

        So now we have reached the subject of the "roommate".  He is actually my ex-boyfriend that didn’t move out.  Quite a terrible situation, I might add.  Kids, don’t try this at home.  At the end of Kawasaki’s speech he added something that I think is most appropriate right now: "And now, I'm going to give you one extra hindsight because I've probably cost your parents thousands of dollars today.  It's something that I hate to admit to.  By and large, the older you get, the more you're going to realize that your parents were right…I know you're all saying, "Yeah, right." Mark my words."  Well, I hate to admit it, but my parents were right.  They protested and threatened me when my boyfriend moved in with me almost two years ago, saying that I was too young and all that stuff that parents (especially parents of girls) say to their children about their boy/girlfriend who they don’t approve of.  Well, the beginning of our relationship wasn’t bad, with the huge exception of the relationship with my parents, but my boyfriend and I did fine.  I did well in school, actually better, and I was, above all, happy.  Then things changed and I was unhappy, made him unhappy, which made me more unhappy, and the whole situation/relationship turned very ugly very quickly.  So we decided to breakup, which was actually mutually decided (for real, though I think that he was a little too relieved about it…).  We figured that I was planning on moving at the end of the summer anyway and we would probably separate then, either a good thing if our relationship stayed the way it was or bad if our relationship got better.  But we could stay friends if we broke up, theoretically anyhow.  But after the breakup, he didn’t move out for various reasons, nor was he for the summer.  So that is when I decided that it was time for me to move.

        So anyway, with lots of detail, that was my way of saying that my parents were trying to give me good advice, but I was too stubborn and too much in beginning-relationship-love to take it.  But I think for most people, you have to make your own mistakes, or experiences as I prefer to call them (most of which are put in the "not-to-do-again" category), and you won’t heed what your parents tell you (or even your friends…).  But with your 20-20 hindsight, you should take the time to let your parents know that they were right, and you acknowledge this fact (even though you will probably still ignore their advice the next time, too) because most parents get a kick out of knowing that you know they were right…mine did.

7/97