The Bleh

I had expected to feel happy and done and carefree and just plain free.  I had expected to finally be able to focus on writing and reading and learning and everything I had put off doing until “after I’m done with college shit.”  I had expected to use the lowered expectations and lack of grades that “count” as a chance to “explore my interests” and “pursue my passions” and to finally practice more of what I preach.  Instead, I just feel like a blob.  Instead, I just feel, well, bleh.

I’m not saying that I am not enjoying the perks of being an (almost) second semester senior, because I am.  Driving where I want, when I want, grabbing fro yo with friends on a Wednesday night, and occasionally (not so occasionally) treating homework as a suggestion is great, don’t get me wrong.  It’s just that I had always expected senior slump to be more of a choice.  I had always expected it to be equivalent to not caring, but I do care – just not enough to actually do anything productive.

So now, instead of coming home and starting my homework, I plop down on my living room couch and watch an episode of Scandal.  Now, instead of going to Starbucks to write from 7-9, I think about how I don’t possibly have time considering how much homework I still have left as I start another episode of Scandal.

Now that I am not stressed out about grades and college and clubs and applications, I find myself worrying about different things, real things.  Like how empty I feel without the validation that comes from getting an A.  Like how maybe playing the game of school is what I’m good at and maybe it’s too late to learn how to learn.  Like how much I want to do something that means something but I don’t know how and anyway it’s easier to just watch other people do things that mean things on TV.

Maybe I’m just overcomplicating senioritis.  Maybe I just don’t know how to properly slump.  Or maybe I’m exhausted.  Maybe I’ve been exhausted since the second half of freshman year and maybe it took being done focusing on college to realize it.

Maybe senior slump isn’t a decision made sixth eights of the way through high school but a gradual bleh, a loss of motivation and of direction as a result of no longer knowing what we’re working towards.