Every year, when students from here graduate, I look at grad photos. I always get weirded out when I see how much the students I went to school with have matured. It reminds me that lots of time has passed and gives me a strange feeling inside.

One person in particular who I was surprised to see this year was my best childhood friend's sister. It's hard to believe that she's already seventeen or eighteen years old. She's lost a lot of weight and actually looks good. I wondered about her a few times in the past as I often think of people I used to know. Back when I was friends with her brother, I'd see her at least once a week, so it definitely makes sense that she'd pop into my head from time-to-time.

Anyway, I was mostly surprised to see her because I can remember her right from the time she was born. It's scary when a person you can remember as a baby is about to start their life, while you, the person who's been out of school for more than half a decade, haven't really started yours.

yeah thats a shitty feeling... i tend to avoid it

Ugh, don't remind me.

I'm surrounded by overachieving younger cousins.

it only sucks when you get caught up in their system of values.

I'm not saying I'm immune to their influences, but people and their willingness to accept the status quo is what keeps things from actually ever improving: mindless consumerist hell with no direction or purpose other than consumption.

That's not the type of life I'd want to live, so I don't.

I do admit though, the people that live life like that do see the world as a place that has value, they're able to instill themselves with a sense of purpose, and that's something I can be envious of.

I recently saw a girl in a parking lot that my mom used to babysit about 14 years ago. She was with her kid...

I agree with this.

When I was in my early 20's, I felt agonized by this because I didn't understand what I wanted in life. Now I'm turning 27 in a month and I've been out of school for a decade. It's been years since I felt torn between the values of others and what I want myself. I decided I want to be a recluse for life, since people don't even interest me.

I admit I like appearences though. Whenever I go out I tend to dress fancy. I spent a fortune of tax payer money on getting interior decorating stuff, art and furniture so I can at least live comfortable the day I get an apartment. I've created a design interior of high quality which you don't see 95% of ordinary people having and this makes me feel good.

I still feel life is pointless though. I might as well die but what makes me want to live is my interior design project. I'm creating a dream environment for myself to live in. Like a sanctuary between time and space where I will live comfortably and secluded until I die.

My two little cousins who used to live with us for a while when they were two & three are now 18 & 19 & just graduated high school (the 19 year old had been held back a year). It makes me feel pathetic because I should have graduated in 2000 & they're already ahead of me in life with a lot of things, even though they're both barely adults.

since i'm a bit older i can totally relate. seeing people i went to grade school with have careers and look down on me for being nothing hurt. hearing about ex friends graduate from college stung, knowing that i wouldn't be able to go and get that piece of paper and be trapped seemingly forever. days weeks months and years pass by and i'm still in the same boat i was in fifteen years ago.
the harder part now for me is as my child gets older i think of everything i make certain to provide for her that i was denied. it gets harder to let the past be the past and not dwell on every abusive and neglectful event. it gets harder and harder to remain amicable. i finally talked to them on the phone a few days ago and drank my way through that conversation. i don't want to be poisoned from something that is no longer dragging me down or a part of my life and i should just be happy for my child.. but i can't help be petty about all the things that were ruined for me, stolen from me, and made out to be nothing.

Yeah, I knew a lot of the freshmen when I was a senior in high school. They'll be seniors this upcoming fall, so it's kinda weird to me that these kids who used to hang with my friends and me about 3 years ago are already nearly done with the drama hell known as high school. It seems like they're way younger than me, when in reality they're only 3-4 years younger (which isn't much, if you really think about it).

It's kinda like with my niece. She'll be 13 in July, and although it seems like I'm ancient compared to her, an 8-year difference really isn't all that big. It just seems like I'm much older than her because it's been a long time since I went through my early adolescence. Could also be due to the fact that we're both from different generations (she's a Millennial and I'm from what many refer to as Generation Me).

If you feel that's the kind of progress you want for yourself, then they're ahead of you. Otherwise they aren't.

I've done this too. It really shocks me how much most of them have changed, not just their lives, but their appearances. I don't even recognize most of them, including the girl I had a crush on from 3rd to 12th grade.

I go through live in a daze with people, so I'm probably not yet old enough to have such a feeling, and even then I'd never experience it because I don't remember people's faces, names, etc. Just voices and words and touch.

So guys, tell me, what's it like?

I definitely DO want that kind of progress in my life. That's why I'm so depressed all the time. My life feels meaningless because all the things I long to do are too hard for me to do & seem impossible. The life I want to live & the life I'm living now are virtually the total opposite of one another.

There is no breed of human more irritating than highschool seniors that are about to or have just graduated.

It. Means. Nothing. So. Shut. Your. Fucking. Face. Seriously. It's not any more of an accomplishment than getting through a really long line at the DMV. It's just the end of a mandatory process required if you want a piece of paper that tells other people you just completed said process. Whoopty. Fucking. Doo. And all of those spiffy colleges they like to brag about going off to? Congratulations, you have a shitload of cash to blow! I got my dose of reality at the local fucking community college and I'll be making the same amount as you will while spending a fraction of the money, but I guess I don't get to have that false sense of superiority, like the kind faggots who drive BMWs get. Sucks for me. But I guess not having a $30,000 student loan to pay off kinda balances that out.

I'm not old enough to really comment about the actual topic, but I couldn't hold that back. The class two years behind me graduated tonight. The fag who had second chair, next to *moi* who was first chair, in band was saladictorian. I don't care. His sister was a cunt who graduated with me, and went off to some scam art school in New York City all the while acting like she was the Queen of Bloody Fucking England, and I bet he's the same way.

Amen. Really well said.

The naively ambitious people who already feel they have the entire truth of the universe in their hand at the age of 18-20 will sometimes see that the lifepath diverts from the mandatory process as they get older. I bet some of those people will wonder where they went wrong when they're divorced, have a kid with Down's and are working as a bank clerk whos' only joy in life is going to Cuba once a year for a salsa holiday.

I think having an introverted and spiritual view of reality from a very young age can be an advantage later on. The danger is if you're absolutely stuck between the world of others and your own world, without achieving either and instead just feeling like a failure. That's where suicides happen I think. If people could grow spiritually they would see that an alternative lifestyle isn't the end of the world.

Just because someone goes to Tokyo or Paris or New York to do this or that in a certain way at a certain age, doesn't mean that you can't go there at a different age, doing different things at a different time. It doesn't have to be a career or something that makes you "successful". Why be sad because others live a life you deep down don't really want to live.

They've already graduated college in 2009. I don't think about it too much because I don't have any relation to any of them anymore, but it kind of sucks to think of it during the periods when I'm trying to do things in the socially acceptable way, because it's like I'm losing a competition in 'becoming the best person' or whatever. I don't know why I even think of it as a competition, since I've lost at that from the beginning.