The response e-mail I recieved was short and to the point:
"** Please do not respond to this automated message. **
If you have questions regarding this email or your account,
This email serves as confirmation of your online payment.
You can monitor the status of your payment online.
We appreciate the opportunity to serve you.
Customer Service
Sallie Mae"
However it might as well have said, "WELCOME TO THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!", because this now-monthly student loan interest payment was the first in a long line of bills I'll be paying for the rest of my life. Under the assumption that the payments on my sophomore year's student loans would be deferred until after graduaton like last year's, I applied for a new type of loan from Sallie Mae and in one click more than doubled the amount I owe to that company. Soon enough I discovered that this type of loan requires me to make monthly interest payments to the tune of around $40. Inititially dismayed, I soon took the optimist's approach and convinced myself that although its an inconvenience now, it would probably save me thousands of dollars in the long run.
But the fact remains: it's $40 a month and I'm a college student.
I thought about this whole situation and I guess its one of those various "turning points" we have in our lives, though I never considered it as such before. If you'd asked me a month ago I would have said learning to walk is a turning point, your first job is one, so is high school graduation, and your first kid too. It wasn't until I checked my "Payments Due" tab on my loan account that I thought, "Whoa, I start this and things will never go back to the way they were." Unless I run away to the Canadian wilderness that is, which may become an option with the state our economy is in.
Nonetheless, before I finally clicked "Submit Payment" today, I had a slight urge to wait, as if I was subconciously trying to preserve as much of my childhood as I could, though as many people who've graduated college and gone on to have get jobs and buy houses and whatnot have told me, this is akin to bailing water from the Titanic. I value my teenage (and often childish) freedom. I've resolved to try to retain it as long as I can because I know it'll be one of the aspects of my life I will miss the most when its gone. I don't think I'm alone in this. My generation as a whole seems to want to stay young and free longer. I guess this stems from not having to work at a factory when you're 12 or having to raise brothers and sisters yourself because Mom and Dad work all day every day. It's as if each generation stays younger and younger as they get older and older. Now, I'm not suggesting that the youth stays irresponsible as we age, but it just seems to me that there's less, "You're a 40 year-old man, now act like one" mentality in today's society.
I honestly hope this idea of staying "young" sticks around because I intend to take full advantage of it.
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