Empty walls and hollow sounds
My apartment on campus is getting pretty depressing. We’re all moving out this week as the semester comes to a close and we move on. My roomies and I have been gradually packing up our stuff and bringing it home. The walls are bare where my roommate’s Twilight posters were hung and the polka-dot wall stickies were removed. My room is also devoid of posters with a nearly empty closet and bookshelf. And it’s starting to echo in the apartment, which is the most hollow sound imaginable when it’s the place you’ve lived in for eight months.
Even though I’m happy to be graduating and moving forward, I can’t help but be sad that I won’t be coming back next year. This year has been awesome and I never thought it would be because of my crazy schedule. I actually got placed with an amazing roommate whom I now consider one of my best friends. She has made this stressful year so much more fun than it would have been without her. I will miss her extremely off-key serenades and drunken debauchery, which always led to some hilarious entertainment and me putting her to bed. I’ll even miss her super pink room where we would sit on her squishy foam-topped bed and talk for hours. She is hands down the best roomie I’ve ever had.
I don’t know what the world will hold for me after graduation. I’m so used to being a student that I’m not quite sure about how to operate in the professional world. I’m not a kid any more, though I still go running home to my mom when something happens – she’s always been my rock in this hectic world. I know that these feelings are normal, but it’s scary knowing that you’re on your own now.
It’s almost as though some little piece of my heart just emptied out and I don’t know how to fill the space. Corny, I know, but that’s how it feels. John Mayer sums it up perfectly. I’ve never connected with a song more than I do right now with “Stop This Train.”
Lyrics:
No, I’m not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind
But I just can’t sleep on this tonight
Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can’t
But honestly, won’t someone stop this train?
Don’t know how else to say it
Don’t want to see my parents go
One generation’s length away
From fighting life out on my own
Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can’t
But honestly, won’t someone stop this train?
So scared of getting older
I’m only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun
Had a talk with my old man
Said “help me understand”
He said “turn sixty-eight
You renegotiate”
“Don’t stop this train
Don’t for a minute change the place you’re in
And don’t think I couldn’t ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we’ll never stop this train”
Once in awhile, when it’s good
It’ll feel like it should
And they’re all still around
And you’re still safe and sound
And you don’t miss a thing
Till you cry when you’re driving away in the dark
Singing
Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can
Cause now I see I’ll never stop this train
Milestones
Today is a day of milestones. It’s my adorable roommate’s 21st birthday and it’s the day I get the first signatures on the final version of my senior thesis.
My roomie is so thrilled to be 21. She’s been so excited about it over the last few days and it’s hard not to smile at her enthusiasm. When she eventually goes to bed, I’ll be decorating the apartment for the occasion. She and I went out to a local bar and grill because she wanted to be in a bar when she turned 21 at midnight. I bought her the very first legal drink she’s ever had, and I consider that a privilege. She’s an amazing, upbeat and ridiculously funny person and she has changed my outlook on life considerably. I hope that we will be able to stay in touch after I graduate this year as I consider her one of my best friends. Lord knows I’m going to make a conscious effort to talk to her regularly and not let her slip away like some of my high school friends. She’s so important to me.
Beyond that, my senior thesis is DONE. I was beginning to think it would never happen. I’m down to getting the appropriate signatures and handing everything in to the Honors College. It’s a huge step toward graduation that I’ve been dying for for about the last month. I can’t wait to get it off my hands and have some time to enjoy my last weeks in college. As much as I’m ready to move on, I’ll miss college. Who wouldn’t?
I’m back
I know I haven’t posted in a few days, but I have a really good reason. I swear!
I’ve been working pretty much nonstop on my senior thesis. I have finally fired off my rough draft in an E-mail to my advisor in the hopes that I’m actually close to being done. I’m aware that it’s probably going to be ripped to shreds, but at least I’ve got something to officially prove that I’ve been doing all of this work. I cannot wait to get this thing off of my hands so that I can actually enjoy *gasp* my last month of college. It feels good to know that I’ve reached some sort of stairway-landing on this climb to departmental honors. I can take a little bit of a breather while my advisor looks it over and scribbles away in red pen.
It’s 3:21 in the morning and my brain is all mushy. After such a short post, I’m sorry to say that it’s my bedtime at last.
Growing pains
I’ve been working on my senior thesis project over the last few days which involves researching ways to increase newspaper readership in the age of electronic media. Then it hit me today while writing about the introduction of the World Wide Web.
I’m GRADUATING.
In a little over a month I’m going to be set free upon the world and left to my own devices. I won’t lie – that thought honestly scares me.
When did the world get so big? That kid song lied. This so totally isn’t a small world. It’s huge and open and intimidating. My place has always been at home with my family and friends or at school studying. And now I have to step out of that world and into a career. But before I’m able to start that career, I have to tread that shaky bridge between the small world I’ve known my whole life and the next world that I’ve never been introduced to. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m only 22 for crying out loud.
But I know my journalism field. I know how to work within it quite effectively. I know that I really do know my stuff. I’m graduating with high honors for heaven’s sake. So why wouldn’t I be able to fit into the workforce? There’s really no reason why I shouldn’t. It’s just a lot unfamiliar territory and anyone could be scared of that, right?
The current economy is also creating chaos with my ability to cope with the upcoming freedom. Journalism is already one of the lowest paying fields right out of the starting gates. And because of electronic media, employers are cutting back right and left. Will I be able to get a job? If so, will I be able to keep that job? Am I going to be able to get married, get a dog and eventually have kids? What the hell am I going to do if I can’t? There’s all these unanswered questions circling around my brain and no one seems to be able to provide even half-assed answers.
I miss the days when it was simpler. I never realized how good I had it coming home from only a half day of kindergarten to a peanut butter and jelly lunch waiting for me made with love from mom. We would watch Little House on the Prairie together before my sisters got home and I’d have mom all to myself. I didn’t have to worry about money or having a roof over my head and clothes on my back. I didn’t have to worry about what’s for dinner or when I had to go to work. All I concerned myself with was being sure to ask everyone in my morning class if they would be my friend and making sure that the afternoon student who sat at my desk didn’t touch my stuff.
I don’t want to move out of Michigan and away from my family, but that’s a very real possibility. My parents have been my rock through everything and it’s downright petrifying to think that I might not have them easily accessible face-to-face. They were there when I got my first B+ and calmed me down when I was shocked and upset. They were there when I was being threatened by a crazy ex-boyfriend in the seventh grade. They were there for all the miseries and frustrations of high school and my first job. They got me to college and let me abuse their washing machine and raid the pantry at home. And my mom still turned on my heated mattress pad this winter when she knew I was coming home late from work to a freezing-cold house.
I guess the whole idea and everything that goes into it is overwhelming. Let’s face it – I’m overwhelmed by reality.
