Rock Out
There is very little that I miss about high school. In fact I struggle to think of anything that I miss about high school with the obvious exception of summer vacation. That and the theater program that consumed my entire after school life. Otherwise high school was pretty much just a slog of waking up early, classes and homework I only sometimes did, and a whole lot of hormonal teenaged assholes. I am all set for high school; I feel no need to go back.
College is a different story. While I do not wish to repeat the actual process of classes and midterms, finals, and papers, the lifestyle that I lived as a college student was pretty great. There was enough freedom to make my own decisions yet still there was the security net of knowing that my parents were within a three hour drive and I could go home any time I wanted. I could order Dominos and go to Turkey Hill for snacks (assuming I had the money) and I could also sleep in as late as I wanted or stay up all night and none of it mattered.
The best semester of college for me was the last one. That was the year I roomed with my best friend, Monica, and we lived in a house with four other people. It was a good group of people and while we mostly kept to our own schedules, we occasionally got together for a “family” dinner or, more frequently, family video game time. During the first weeks of that semester, before the workloads started to pile up, we spent hours playing Mario Kart and, my personal favorite, Rock Band.
Our house was situated almost of the corner of a block, next door to Public Safety and across the street from the music building and the chapel. I remember once walking back from somewhere on campus and as I passed the chapel, a good block away from the house, I could hear through the open windows the tell tale swearing that meant a fierce Mario Kart matchup was happening. When I walked in the door I let everyone know that the f-bombs were sailing through our open windows and landing as far away as the chapel; they barely took notice and continued on with the game.
I do love Mario Kart and can swear along with the best of them, but my favorite at the time was Rock Band. One of the guys living in the house had the full set up and we spent lots of time quite literally rocking out together. I was…okay. Not great, but I didn’t cause the whole band to fail songs either, at least not often. But even though I had no great skills I was absolutely in love with the game. Any time we were all in the living room I was secretly praying that someone would suggest breaking out the Rock Band gear. How could anyone want to do anything other than play Rock Band? I couldn’t understand it.
When I was alone in the house I played songs over and over again, trying to master them for the next jam session. And every time I had to stop playing because I had to go to class or write a paper or actually sleep for a little while my heart broke a little bit. All I wanted was to play Rock Band. How dare college and regular life get in the way? I looked forward to a time after college when I could spend my free time bellied up with a plastic guitar controller in my clutches, mastering the game.
Ah, the folly of youth. I neglected to remember that once I graduated college the next step was to get a job. Then on top of working I would need to be a responsible adult and do other adult type things like pay bills, cook meals, generally be a productive member of society. I wouldn’t have time to play Rock Band, not to mention the fact that I didn’t have Rock Band and couldn’t afford it either. And so, as so often happens with relationships built in college, Rock Band and I drifted apart. We saw each other occasionally at friend’s houses, but after awhile no one really wanted to play anymore, so we just stopped seeing each other.
Until last year. In July 2022 I went on the first date I had been on in approximately fourteen years. We opted to go to an establishment called Yestercades which is exactly what it sounds like: an arcade with pretty much any game you could imagine from the original PacMan to the most recent releases. While the date itself turned out to be a non-starter, I did rekindle my long lost relationship with my one true video game love: Rock Band. We didn’t actually play it that day, but I nearly drooled all over myself as we walked past the drum set and the guitar controllers, desperately wanting to play, but not wanting to extend the date any longer than it had already gone. We left and I went home to pretty much forget about the guy, but my affection for Rock Band burned brighter every day.
At Christmastime I received a good amount of Christmas money from my parents who are trying to precisely calculate and divvy up all of the inheritance before they die. As my mother says every year, “if there is anything left when we’re gone, it was a miscalculation.” Anyway, I got my portion of the money and was left with the decision of what to do with this disposable income.
“Put it in savings!” said one side of my brain. “You will need to buy a new car in the next couple of years, this can go towards the down payment.” A reasonable thought, though not a very fun one. And so I turned to the other side of my brain, the less responsible side that wants to do nothing but read books, watch tv, lay in bed, and eat cupcakes for the rest of my life. “What do you think I should do, Lazy Brain?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Buy Rock Band, obvs,” came the reply.
And so I did. While the majority of the money did end up in savings, I took a big chunk and fulfilled my college aged dream and bought myself a Rock Band set up. It was quite an ordeal to find a set up that would work with the game console that I already own and that wasn’t also so old it was broken. But I did it and spent much of the next several weekends playing all the songs I remembered from those college days. So satisfying, even though I still kind of sucked and had no one more talented to unlock the tougher songs for me.
But then the worst happened. Work got busy. I had to put down the controller and actually earn the income that was keeping the roof over my Rock Band lair. One week passed without me even touching the game. Then another. And another. And before I knew it this treasured Rock Band accoutrements became dusty and sat, untouched but not unloved, in my living room.
People have said that high school is the best time in a person’s life. Those people obviously peaked in high school and are either very sad in their adult lives or they are just stupid. Others may think that college is the best time in a person’s life. I can agree with that slightly more, but having to write papers that frequently or to actually work to pay for school is stressful and not worth the other benefits that come with the college years.
Rather than pining for the past I have found that I believe my best years to be ahead of me. Right now is pretty good, I must say, but I still have a sneaking suspicion that even better lies ahead. Which is not to say that being an adult is easy. It is not. It sucks with regularity. And I know that there are unknown challenges that lie ahead that I will enjoy in zero ways. Such is life. But still I feel all the way down to my toes that the best is yet to come. Pure folly, perhaps, but a feeling that makes me less sad when adulting is getting me down.
And while I don’t want to live my whole life longing for what was, it is nice to have little pieces of pleasant memories sitting in my living room. Maybe that is what makes for the best years of our lives. Maybe they are built by pulling together the pieces that made our younger days good. My living room is full of family photos, artwork from my favorite fictional stories, piles of craft materials, an old afghan from my grandparents’ house, and, yes, my Rock Band gear, dusty though it may be at the minute. All moments from before that amalgamate into my present collection of happy things, a happy place that I can go to when my responsibilities as a real person become too much.
When I was in high school and even college I didn’t know enough about myself yet to really be happy or feel settled. Now it feels like I am just coming into that time in my life when I know what I’m about and know what I want. The best is yet to come, I believe, and I am slowly building the best on the foundations of what came before, taking breaks every now and then to rock out in my living room.
