Best Time of My Life

Continuing my reflections of the past...

If high school was the worst five years of my life, the following two years of attending Carleton University and living in residence there was by far the best. Not only was I living on my own for the first time and meeting great new people, it seemed all the negative things about high school were removed and positives put in their place:

- Intelligence was respected and attractive as opposed to derided and geeky,

- I had some choice of classes I would take instead of being mostly dictated to me,

- Living in the city gave numerous choices for activities whereas living at home in the country made things more difficult

- I had lost a lot of weight the summer before

Quite simply, for two years everything clicked. I had awesome friends, good grades, and lots of fun. I had my first kiss, met my future wife-to-be, and figured out who I was and who I wanted to be. The euphoria of that time still makes me glow with fondness.

It helped that by living in residence on campus I had the freedom of being away from home with only a portion of the responsibilities. The lodgings and meals were paid for up front, all I had to take care of was a phone bill. It also was great that my roommate for the first year was a great guy and that my residence floor was filled with exceptional people and very few morons, it made the transition surprisingly easy and homesickness was non-existent.

My life has been great since that time (with one exception that I will chronicle at a later time), and it only reason it is not as great as those first two years is because reality of work, bills, and relationships take their toll. I am richer in life now than I was then but not as carefree and blissfully ignorant. I am content with my life but I will always look back with fondness for those first two years of university and the liberating feeling of finally finding myself and my place in the world.