From the desk of Ren LaForme

Growing up is a lot harder than I thought. I used to worry about what I would eat in the lunch room at my high school and what to wear in the mornings.

Now I’m making decisions that could affect my life-long relationships and my career.

I’m scared for the future. I’d never admit it to anyone face-to-face, but I am. I’m will graduate in seven months. I have no idea I’m doing after that.

I could apply to graduate schools. My grades aren’t the best — but those are for my psychology major. If grad schools focus on my journalism major, it looks like I’m doing pretty good. And I got a respectable score on the GREs.

But I don’t want to leave my girlfriend to further my schooling. I don’t want us to end up in two different cities. People who give up opportunities for a relationship are stupid — I know — but this girl is the one and I’m not going to let her go. Plus I never really wanted to go to grad school. The whole thing is just a whim for me.

I could also decide to not attend graduate school and travel with her to whichever school she gets into. I really want to get out of the Buffalo area and all of the schools are looking at are in larger cities. It would be fun to live on our own somewhere exciting.

This is the option that will most likely happen. I’ll get a job somewhere — hopefully a writing job — and work while she gets her master’s degree. I like this option because it’s the one we’ve been discussing for a while and I don’t really want to continue schooling at this point.

But this option scares me too.

A lot of the schools she is considering offer internships in far-off places like New Delhi and London. Obviously, I wouldn’t be able to go and I don’t know what would happen to me if I was left alone for 12 weeks or more.

My girlfriend went to Los Angeles over the summer for five days and I almost had a breakdown. It was really hard and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. It’s not that I don’t trust her — I do. I trust her more than I trust my own family.

I honestly don’t trust myself. I’m pretty needy when it comes to relationships. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I lean far too much on my significant other. I spend all of my time with her and all but ignore my friends. But we both enjoy all of the time spent together so it’s a non-issue.

Of course I would encourage her to take the internship. Journalism is her dream and this would be a career-making experience, and I’m not the boyfriend that holds her from her future.

I just get weird when I can’t see her. I can never seem to find anything to keep myself occupied. When she doesn’t call because she’s busy, it upsets me because it makes me feel unimportant. I’m not sure how I would react if she left for 12 weeks. I feel like I would end up doing something unnecessary to get her attention and act passive-aggressively toward her until I got it.

I don’t want to ruin this. I means too much to me. How do I deal with her being gone?

P.S. This post is a low point for me. I promise to not write anything with so much melancholy in the future.

Three kids, two cars, a big house and a white picket fence. These are the things that every 21-year-old wants, right?

Wrong.

I’ve always been under the impression that the early 20s are a time for fun, exploration, mistakes and no regrets. So why are so many young people popping out kids?

Someone I know recently had a baby . Ever since, I’ve heard all sorts of stories about how she complains that she has no time to do what she wants and how her life is too stressful for her to handle. I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure you made the decision to plant the seed and watch it sprout.

I honestly can’t think up a single good reason for a young person to settle down and have a child.

Are you lonely? Make some friends. Go to school. Join a club. There are a million places to make friends and meet people. Don’t try to grow your own best friend.

Are you scared your significant other will leave you? Let him. Find someone else. Don’t use a tiny human being as a living leveraging chip. That’s terrible.

Got nothing else to do? Do I even need to tell you what sort of better things you could be doing? Join a bowling league. Take up knitting. I’m joking – but seriously. There are plenty of other things you could be doing that don’t involve drool and poop.

Last summer, I went to New York City, Boston, Connecticut and Toronto. There is no way I could have gone to all of those places if I had a child. Next summer, I’m traveling to Ireland and moving to a new, exciting city that’ll probably cost an arm and a leg just for housing.

Could I do any of that with a child? It’s doubtful.

My point is, 50 years from now, when I look back on my life I don’t plan on having any regrets.

All you youngins with kiddies — do you think you’re going to feel the same?

http://www.ubspectrum.com/article/45

This is a column about my girlfriend, Executive Editor Keeley Sheehan.

Last semester, my columns focused on mostly political and global issues. One of them was more of a memorial than a column.

So this semester, I wanted to do something a little bit different — I decided to focus more on my own life. I chose to write my first one about Keeley since she is such a huge part of me right now.

It was a fun and whimsical article to write and I look forward to writing more personal columns in the future.