One of my professors once asked the class, "If you can't be presumptuous in university, where can you?" He then led a year-long class in which spouting off opinions and assumptions, whether wrong or right, was encouraged and accepted. I remember feeling excited and freed; it was like being let loose in a verbal candy store after high school. I think the difference was in high school, concepts and events are explained to you and you are asked to recall them. In university, you are told about concepts and events and asked to interpret them. I have thrived in this academic circus, and reveled in being the student with her hand raised, the student with something to add to the conversation pot. It helped complex ideas become more tangible and helped me to feel more connected with the world around me to share my thoughts and learn that other shared them with me.
But I feel like I'm growing out of this, against my will. Even though I know I'm an extrovert, I know I'm built to express, my instincts are fighting against my mental list of embodied preferences. I find myself wanting to roll my eyes when the girl who always smiles talks about working towards world peace in my terrorism law class. I tap my pen on my spiral notebook waiting for my prof to talk so I can take down notes, not listen to the guy across from me share his thoughts on abortion when we're talking about aboriginal sentencing circles.
Am I destined to become a cynical old cat lady? I'm afraid that in spite of my best efforts to squint through rose-coloured glasses and drink a glass half full, my internal nature is switching to crochety old person mode. Was I wrong all these years as a wide-eyed kid to vow never to become cynical, to believe I could be the one to stay young, be that lady always on the go and wearing bright colours? Is it in our DNA to become characteristically old? Tonight, I hesitate to say, I am gladly going out to dinner and then coming home to my couch with my man to watch movies.