Member-only story
41 Moments of Growing Up
The surprises, challenges and rewards of moving from youth to adulthood
Part 1: Starting out
You will leave your small town and go to college in the city; you’ll make new friends, some will be fleeting, others life long.
You’ll mix with nerds, eccentrics, brainiacs, fools, screamers, scoundrels, suicides, hippies and hair-raisers.
You’ll lounge on dirty sofas, spend hours with people you can’t talk to, dance in nightclubs, go to parties. In the maze of inebriation they will seem infinite and magical.
You’ll keep a diary, your late-night friend.
You’ll wonder about the logic of personalities and the logic of your own; you’ll find new companions in people who are wondering the same thing.
You’ll try to make yourself attractive; you’ll critique your appeal, you’ll hang out in bars, art galleries, parks, libraries, train stations and lecture halls wondering about the accuracy of your critique.
You’ll learn, at some point, that you can trust yourself
You’ll consume too much of things that are bad for you; at the time it will seem like too little.
