Not even a boy has caused this much anxiety.

After applying for the internship of my dreams in Colorado, here I sit, waiting for “the call.” The call that determines my summer and possibly my future career – do I have the job or don’t I? Many butterflies crowd in my stomach and any time the phone rings my pulse rises to an exhausting work-out pace.

As I wait in this limbo, I am spending way too much time analyzing what my problem is and why I care so much.

First of all, admitting that a boy has caused me less anxiety than waiting on this job is not easy to do. So I say it’s probably an exaggeration. Yes, definitely an exaggeration. I mean, I wouldn’t really remember because I haven’t experienced real boy anxiety since … well, in a long time. So at least I can attribute that confession to a lack of long-term memory or more likely to a lack of excitement in my life.

Second, I don’t really know whether I’m going to get the job. I’m qualified, I think, but it means very little when ultimately it’s in God’s hands. And even so, I certainly don’t have an air of confidence like “I’m definitely going to get it.”

When I first sent in my application, I felt good about it. But now I have mentally rehearsed so many scenarios that I can’t get anything straight. And then thinking about the competition makes it all way too muddled.

And anyway, who wants to live at home the summer before graduation? Mom’s cooking is great, and always having Oreos around is sweet, but Colorado has mountains and independence. That automatically makes peanut butter and jelly tolerable.

I think the biggest problem is this obsession with success. What is the drive we have to be so successful? They say the point of college is not only for academic development but also to experience the “school of life.” Yet it’s confusing because we are fed more than we can stomach about employment, job escalation and making money. This is not the school of real life.

Seriously, if you want to learn about the real world – college isn’t the place. We’ve all finally learned that truth after years of cafeteria food and quiet hours.

In reality, we are here to learn a myriad of never-gonna-remember-that material to get a job and to get paid well – or at least to get paid. All of the other stuff comes from what we don’t learn in the classroom.

So when, alas, a solid opportunity comes along to accomplish the real goal of college, the depreciating value of “success,” I want so badly to snatch it up and make it mine.

But I’ve had enough – I’m giving it up. My stomach has done some pretty impressive gymnastics, but I don’t like working out that much. This drive for success has made me selfish, obsessive and jealous – the way I’m supposed to act around boys. I’m getting sick of being around me and that’s not a good sign.

I’ve decided that whether I get the job, I’m excited to enter the real “school of life.” Hopefully I can learn a thing or two about real domesticity, paying real bills and even losing some real weight. Maybe then the boys will come and the normal butterflies will follow.