The first anniversary of my trying to be independent and a real person!
Hi team! When you last heard from me, I had just wrapped up the spring semester and was looking forward to three weeks off from classes. Since then, Iāve started up my first session of summer classes, drowned, died, and started a really fun and exciting life here in Hell.
Okay, Iām exaggerating, but only by a really small amount. Iām two weeks into the first of two six-week summer sessions. Allow me to complain for just one second. (Feel free to skip this paragraph if youād rather not read my griping.) Right now I have 24 hours of class per week - 7 on Monday, 6 on Tuesday, 8 on Wednesday, and 3 on Thursday. Iām still working pretty much every weekend at my retail job, which has been a really great way to fill up my homework-doing time without making very much money because itās still not that many hours. Iām also working most Thursday mornings before class, as well as Tuesdays. Tuesdays are the toughest because I work from 10:30-3, then go straight to class, which runs from 4-7 and 7-10. (7-10 p.m. is the cruelest class time). Iām already feeling really burnt out and ready for this summer session to be over, and itās really aggressively not over yet. But I think itāll pay off because I only have one class in the second summer session, and only 8.5 hours of class per week in the fall. Okay, griping over.
The reason I wanted to post, though (aside from the reason ofĀ āthis is a blog and thatās what I should be doing anyway, I guessā) is that itās been a year since I moved here! A year since I graduated from college, a year since I started supporting myself, a year since I started grad school! It doesnāt feel like itās been a year, but at the same time, so much has happened and I feel so differently than I did when I first moved here.
I remember spending the first few weeks in my summer apartment (when I was taking one class and working very few hours, so I had a lot of free time and no close friends in the area) lying in my bed watching Gilmore Girls. I was lonely and kind of sad. I (think I) knew at the time that it was going to get better, and I donāt want to say that my life is perfect and iām completely content and satisfied with the social life I have now, but my god is it different. First of all, one of my very best friends moved here, which (I know Iāve said this before) was a godsend. Second, I became friends with the women in my grad program - Iām even hoping to move in with one of them in the fall (and her other roommates seem really fun as well!).Ā
Whatās more, slowly but surely I started to feel like I know this city. I can get around on public transportation, I have places I like to go, places to show people when theyāre visiting, museums I know I can get into for free (thanks, student ID!), and places I want to learn more about. When I first moved here I felt like I had a path to school and a path to work, and I didnāt really want to stray from those paths. Now this city has become a third home. (Yes, third, because my college town will always feel like a home.)
Speaking of college, I was able to go back for Commencement 2016 and play with the Commencement Band for the first time as an alumna, which was wonderful. Itās always great to go back, but it was especially great to (1) be there for an event that was specifically for alumni, so I didnāt have to wonder whether I was overstepping or if it was weird that I was there, and (2) be surrounded by so many alumni from so many different years! It was also really great to see my friends and boyfriend graduate. (Boy, graduations sure are a lot less sad when youāre out of college.)
Watching my friends graduate also helped drive home the fact that Iāve been out of college for a year, and that I really am in a different place than I was when I graduated. Watching my friends cry and say their goodbyes, I distinctly remembered being there - the feel that something huge was at an end, and that nothing would ever be the same again. Looking back at that point from one yearās distance, I think the core of that sentiment was accurate: something huge wasĀ ending, and I donāt think things will ever be the way they were in college. But theyāll be - they areĀ - a different way, and over the course of this year, Iāve realized that the wayĀ of my life is within my power to shape. And, honestly, that even when I donāt do that much conscious shaping of it, it still forms itself into some semblance of coherence. Iāve mentioned before that I wish I had tried harder to make friends with my classmates sooner, to get close with my roommates, to meet new people, etc. But even though I didnāt try really hard at all those things, Iāve still formed new relationships, Iāve still become comfortable in this city. I didnāt necessarily try to build a life for myself here as ardently as I could have, but a life sprung up around me nonetheless.
I tried to share this sentiment with my graduating friends, to try to ease the sadness they were feeling (or at least add some feeling ofĀ āit will be okayā into their sadness, because graduating from a wonderful school with wonderful friends is always going to be sad), but Iām not sure how well I articulated it to them. So if any of them are reading this now - I hope this makes more sense than I did when I was hovering like the ghost of years future over your goodbyes.
Itās strange to think that I might only live here for another seven months - after that, Iāll (hopefully) go out of state for my student teaching, and after that, Iāll be on the job market and I could live anywhere. Thatās a little bit terrifying (and thereās a good chance I might just come back here, because so many of my friends are here), but itās also exciting. When I was graduating from college and had no idea where I was going to end up, I hated that uncertainty. Perhaps itās because, at the next transition of my life, Iāll at least have the narrowed-down approach of looking for very specific jobs in my field, but I also feel like Iām more prepared for that kind of transition, to the point that itās actually something that Iām looking forward to. Before I left college, I donāt think I had ever made a bigĀ transition in my life. Of course going to college itself was a change, but I was still fairly close to home, and still being supported by my parents. In this past year I feel Iāve really come into my own, and learned what it means and what it takes to make this kind of transition - meaning that Iāll only be more skilled and more prepared when it comes to the next one. Bring it on.