current headline on MSNBC.com is:

Developing: Bush says ‘Iran is a threat to world peace’

Im sorry….what? Who is? How many countries are WE at war with right now?

its January 8th and 70 degrees in Baltimore today. i went for a walk midway through my work day. i had to, it would have been a tragedy to have spent the entire day inside. so i went for a walk down by the water. j and i usually do this every day during the warm seasons, but she was in a meeting today, so i went by myself. sometimes its terribly lonely to be alone with your thoughts, but today i was ok with it. i found myself recalling sudden warm spring days on loyola’s campus where i could easily blow off whatever it was i was doing and go for a walk or lay out in the grass under a tree and read.

you know, sometimes i try to put my finger on exactly what it is that i miss the most about college. i am a huge sufferer of the “quarter-life-crisis” syndrome and i try really hard to understand it in hopes of overcoming it.

id like to be superficial and say its the partying, sex and general lack of responsibility, but its really not. those things of course were a factor, but they were more effects than causes. i had a lack of responsibility and a lot of free time to get into trouble because i wasnt tied down to anything. any decision i made really affected only me, so i was free to do whatever i wanted when i wanted without feeling guilty or worrying about losing a job or neglecting a spouse or anything of the such.

i think a lot of the attachment to the college years has to do with having nothing to lose and a clear, solid (and achievable) goal ahead of you. from the first day of preschool until the age of 21, i always had something i was working to, something i knew i would reach if i just rode it out long enough – graduation. and until college, you always know whats coming next – another set of school years with another graduation date. but after college… nothing. theres always grad school, but its not quite the same, most people work full time during grad school, something that is rarely seen among 4-year private college students. so after college, you feel lost all the sudden. and then with that, you realize you suddenly have a lot to lose. baggage. physical, and imagined. at any point during college i could have packed up and moved on without really feeling like i was losing much. i got used to moving every year. it becomes a way of life. what little i owned that was important to me would fit neatly into the trunk of the car. and what wouldnt fit, i could easily leave behind without a second thought. but after college, i started to acquire things, and every move thereafter has taken longer with more planning and more money. its like invisible vines start to grow up out of the ground when you arent looking and wrap themselves around you so that one day, when you suddenly decide you want to change something in your life, start over like you could every september in college – no good. you cant move. your tied down by a mortgage or a job or a family or…something. i dont like that feeling, it makes me uncomfortable. and worse – it makes me unhappy.

im sure theres a lot more to it, but it is a very calming thought to imagine that you have nothing in this world to weigh you down except one suitcase and a couple of milkcrates. thats something i really wish i could have back.