In walked luck and you looked in time
Never look back, walk tall, act fine
I'll stick with you baby for a thousand years
Nothing's gonna touch you in these golden years
I consider “Golden Years” by David Bowie to be something like a personal college anthem. While I rarely find myself yelling “Timber” as I did at this year’s fabulous Winter Ball, I often listen to the 1975 hit as I’m putting on makeup and getting dressed for a night out. You’d think that I’ve known this song for years, but truthfully, it is relatively new to me as someone who’s been fond of Bowie for several years.
Besides the groovy funk/disco sound, something that strikes me about the song is the subject matter itself. It’s essentially a guy reassuring his significant other that she has what it takes to shine throughout her glory days. What makes me contemplate the song further, though, is the concept of a person having a particular set of years in their life that could be described as golden.
I’d like to imagine that I won’t peak in my 20s, but I’m also aware that college tends to be fairly ideal. I can’t speak for everyone else here on the Hill, but as a student with supportive parents, coursework that I love, a part-time job with flexible hours, and an RA position that allows me to provide for myself, I doubt my situation will ever be quite as easy as it is now.
Still, I find that I’ve often made the mistake of stressing out and worrying too much by overloading on tasks, a common occurrence amongst Tufts students. This is the first semester in over a year when I haven’t had a full course load, and last semester I did five classes while also doing an internship in Medford. The weirdest result is that I somehow manage to feel lazy, like I’m not already doing too much.
I recently had one of those Murphy’s Law days--the footage for my newest video was corrupted, I almost destroyed the shredder at work, I got into an argument with a loved one. I resigned myself to my room, so tightly wound that I devoted half an hour to meditation. I hadn’t meditated in several months, even though it’s a practice I deeply value after picking it up as a peer minister in high school. Thirty minutes passed, and with a cup of sleepytime tea, I calmly reflected on the notion that these are the golden years.
Quite frankly, I feel as though part of this stress is entirely based on my perception of what makes for an average adulthood. After Netflix binging the entire first season of Parenthood in the midst of collecting data for a research project (while still having the collegiate luxury of partaking in something so wasteful as Netflix binging), I can’t help but feel like I am face-to-face with an ideal life, and that it should it become more challenging as room and board is replaced by rent payments. Like Aziz Ansari in his recent special Buried Alive, I love babies but remain more or less terrified that people are going to start asking me the just-a-tad sexist “When are you going to settle down?” questions. I believe I’m at a weird crossroads in life, where I’m old enough to successfully handle great responsibility for both other people and my work, but still young enough to stay in my PJs and unabashedly watch Adventure Time at 1 PM on a Saturday.
But before I started to work myself into an anxious state of headache and worry, it occurred to me that I’ve always felt a little bit unprepared for the next stage, whether it was my first day of kindergarten or the day I became a Jumbo. I’ve found that any time that is perceived as “the good ol’ days” will always have its ups and downs. While my college days tends to be hectic, I have enjoyed each and every one of them and see the value in the work that my peers and I put out into the Tufts community. And whether or not I'm ready for the next step, I'll always have the golden moments to look forward to.