There comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to face their own fears and insecurities to become a better person. For me, that time is not right now. Truth be told, my biggest fear is is when that time finally comes. I have spent the better part of the last 24 years trying to avoid that time, and avoid growing up entirely. When I was four I cried to when I had to go to kindergarten, and cried even harder when I had to go to grade one. The concept of "big kids don’t get naptime" horrified me. Truth is it still does. I cried when I had to make the transition to Junior high and again when I had to go to High School. I purposefully fucked up my senior year just to stay in Grade 12 a little bit longer and not have to address the real world. And when the real world came knocking I did what any self respecting drunk would do. I went to University instead.

University, I found had 2 types of people. One was there only to get the education they needed to get a career. These people couldn’t wait to grow up, and usually finished in the four years required, sometimes less. They studied on Friday nights and when their exams were over they were more concerned with their internship at Hyperglobalmegacorp.com that they were with getting wasted and trying to sleep with the cute girl from their Stats class. The other type I found were exactly like me. These people were at school because the real world terrified them. They could usually be identified by high amounts of substance abuse and high counts of sexual misconduct(I somehow missed out on that one), and complete disregard for anything that required responsibility, such as studying. These people changed majors more than most people changed underwear and took way longer to complete their programs. Oh yeah, they are always in Arts, always. I love the people in group 2; they are my kind of people. The kind of people who still skateboard, who still think punk is cool and who still believe they can avoid that day when they have to let it all go.

I have always been a proud member of group 2. But, with many things in life, membership has its price. Being a group twoer got me throw out of university … twice and that led to a chain of events that landed me here. But this is it. At registration this summer, my degree checklist showed that at the end of year I will be the not so proud owner of a not so prestigious Bachelor of Arts degree. And my day is coming. With all the Y2K crap aside, the summer of 2000 may hold my day of reckoning. It gets worse.

Last night I woke up in a cold sweat, screaming at the top of my lungs. I had a dream where I had a job, a girlfriend I had dated for more than 2 weeks, car payments, and a normal suburban life at my fingertips. All I had to was trade in my group 2 membership card. Trade in weeklong benders with my best friends. Trade in spontaneous road trips where every responsibility is dropped because we just got word Fernie got some snow, and it’s deep. Trade in meaningless relationships with meaningless girls. Trade in 3:00 am skateboard sessions. Trade in being on a first name basis with the staff at half the bars in the city. Trade in everything I’ve tried so hard to hold on to the past 24 years. But that’s not the scary part. The part that made me wet the bed, the part that made it impossible to go back to sleep without having the lights on and an old Minor Threat record playing, the part that chilled me to my very essence was the fact that I did it. I made the trade…