Campus Musings
A movie like The Hangover really isn't supposed to make you think. But being the chronic over-thinker that I am, as I watched it last weekend, I managed somehow to wax philosophic between bouts of hysterical laughter.
Here's the plot for those who are unaware: Four guys go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. The next morning, they wake up to find the groom missing with no memory of the night before. Hijinks ensue.
To me, it was a movie about adults acting like kids learning to act like adults. All they set out to do is have some unbridled fun, but then, when they're faced with the real and serious consequences of that objective, the movie ... sort of ... begins to explore what it means to be a grown-up.
This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
How to be an adult is a mystery to me. I've got some vague ideas about "being responsible" and "acting mature," but I have this nagging suspicion that even after I graduate from college and am paying my own bills and thinking about things like taxes and insurance, I still won't really feel like an adult.
For instance, when I visit my friends who have recently graduated, I see them running errands, paying bills, cooking full-scale meals and working full-time jobs, but when they're not doing that, we still end up playing Rock Band on the Wii or going to Wendy's at midnight. We're still figuring out things like our identities, our relationships, and our hair. And to be honest, I don't think a bachelor's degree, a mortgage, a salary, or any number of birthdays will necessarily bring me closer to figuring out any of those things.
So what's the secret? What is this mystical quality that makes an adult an adult and makes me... something else? I'm certainly not a child, no matter how many kids' menus I'm offered; I'm not technically a teenager, having attained the rank of 20-something about four months ago; but even though I can vote and drive and get married, I really couldn't say with a straight face that I'm an adult.
This is something that college doesn't teach you, either. In fact, if anything, college seems to slow down the growing-up process. It keeps you in the comfy incubator of four more years of school, living among your peers. Sure, you gradually get used to things like laundry and groceries and even rent, but your mindset is ultimately still one of a student.
Perhaps that's all it is: a mindset. A worldview, a perspective. A set of priorities in a certain order. All it took for the guys in The Hangover to start—sort of—acting like adults was a shift in priorities. However, I suppose that in reality such a shift doesn't happen overnight. One day, perhaps I'll realize that somewhere along the line I started going to bed early rather than waking up late, but that day is not today. I have quite a ways to go before I'm really at the big people's table.
In the meantime, I might as well make use of this small window of opportunity between child- and adulthood. When else would I be able to enjoy late-night Frosties and French fries over a serious discussion of The Adventures of Pete and Pete?
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Marissa Linzi is a Derry News intern, a graduate of Pinkerton Academy and a rising junior at Brandeis University.
