My cell phone sings and jitters across my desk in a zigzag path, like a cricket missing a leg. “Assemble the minions” illuminates the screen and I quickly reply with “let’s go!”  

Within an hour, I am screaming till my throat is sore from the seat of a red, plastic tire swing with three of my best friends.  

When we’ve had enough, someone will shout, “Break the speaker!” and we will clamber to the top of the monkey bars, using the kiddy “telephone” as a stepping stool. Who says college transforms you into an adult?

This scene is the epitome of why I will miss college.  It is too cliché to simply say, “Oh, I will miss the Hilltoppers and all my friends when I graduate in May!” 

Though it may be true, it is not enough to express the anxiety, excitement and apprehension that will come with walking as a college graduate in the spring.  

It is moments like the 1 a.m. adventures to a local park that have engraved themselves on the tombstone of my college years.  

Sure, I’ve learned a lot. Sure, I’ve enjoyed classes and the professors and the overall college experience. But that is easily expected of the average college student.

When we began our “park nights,” it was last spring and we were suffering from the sting of midterms. Feeling the restlessness of a wild colt after being pinned in by heavy textbooks, we piled into an Element (a boxlike contraption of a car), drove around Bowling Green with too loud music, and yelled at the random pedestrian here and there. However, it was not long before we were bored and needed something else to blow off steam, and the sugar rush of too many GADS donuts.

The only male in the group was also the only Bowling Green native, and suggest around 12:30 a.m. that we go to Covington Park. Upon arriving, the four of us made a mad dash for the tire swing.  We tackled the chains and hoisted ourselves up so we were standing with our heads inches from the bar the swing hung from.  

For the next ten minutes, we screamed too loudly, tried to knock each other off, and woke up the neighborhood from quiet sleep. Fortunately, it was what we needed to let go of the unnecessary energy, and we eventually untangled ourselves from the pinching chains and found ourselves on top of the monkey bars, where we discussed our lives’ problems.

Recently, as we sat atop the cold bars, we brought up the near future of graduating. Two of us graduate in May, one in December, and the last will wait another year or so, depending on how well her major works out.  

We joke that we will still meet up, since we all plan to stick around the area, but the truth sat like an unwelcoming fifth presence:  the “real world” will soon drag us off, whether we become adults or not.

This commentary doesn’t necessarily represent the views of the Herald or the university.