the lean, mean, green string bean.

Last night after the fifth round of drinks at Jupiter the waitress told us that they were closing up. We had a really good time last night. Lots of laugh with plenty of singing. Toward the end we started singing Catholic hymns like "One bread, one body", "Pan de Vida", "On Eagle's Wings", "Though the Mountains May Fall", and of course, "Hail Holy Queen" - Sister Act style. At first it was pretty awkward but we really got into it. Earlier three of us had been singing the chorus from Beethoven's symphony 9, but more than half couldn't join us because they knew the melody and not the German lyrics. But most of all I had a good conversation with a friend I haven't seen in forever. We exchanged some thoughts, shared ideas, and thought about a friend that just left for heaven. I am happy to be closer to her again.

Anyway, as we all went out separate ways one of my friends who lives a couple of doors up the street from me and I continued to hang out. First we spoke on my porch but soon moved to his place when he said he was cold. He wanted to continue drinking - who am I to refuse? At that point I was getting pretty tired so I drank a little more than half of the li hing mui daquiri he had made for me. I sat there in the common dining area and could see his housemates in the other room through the french doors. I asked him, "How are your housemates? Cool or what?" He replied, "Yeah, they're pretty cool. Sometimes I see them do really jacked up things but I have to stop and remember: they're still kids. So when I see them as kids they do some pretty amazing things." Somehow I was blown away by that.

Just then a whole line of them came into the dining area to meet me. I stood up and shook their hands and tried to remember their names. One of them told my friend, "I wasn't feeling what you cooked for dinner tonight. It was funky." My friend just laughed and told her that he appreciates her honesty. All I could do was smile at that potentially awkward but real conversation. The other people there was asking me what I do, what I study, where I am from. Now, my friend likes to point things up a bit. He made it sound as if I was somebody important but I quickly dispelled that with a veritable cornucopia of swear words. They got the picture. I learned that two of them are roughly my age. After what must've been ten minutes of talking they all retired to their rooms for the night.

That experience shook me up. I was confronted with the thought of being "old". Looking at those guys I saw peers, not kids. Granted, my friend is a bit older than me. I mentioned this to him very briefly - that is, how awkward it is to feel old. He said, "You're not chronologically much older than they are. You need to understand that you have a maturity they don't have just yet." I couldn't think of a reply at the time. He was right. I knew it. Hearing him say that made me want to fight it. I'm 23 - still a kid. I don't think I have come to terms with the fact that people are younger than me in a role I still feel like I occupy. It's been such a wake up call. Nor has this been the first time this has come up.

So I just kinda sat there, speechless. It's so hard to think about growing up. Wait, actually no. It's easy to grow up but it's hard for me to accept the fact that others think that I am "old". In this way alone I never want to grow up. Here I was, sitting at this gigantic table with my daquiri, while the others were in the living room playing. I wanted to play too. But it wasn't my place to do that. Instead I had a formal relationship to them as if I was alien to my own kind. Here I was, wanting to be with my peers. And for the first time I saw who my peer was: the other graduate student. How unfair. I'm not trying to say that I am eons ahead of them. No. Quite the contrary. I have plenty of respect for those undergraduates, which is precisely why I wanted to talk to them. At the same time that sort of dynamic was really interesting. I didn't have to want to get to know them. It just happened, albeit on a superficial level. Yikes.

I don't know if I'll ever get used to this sort of thing. That scares me.