I suppose you might have been wondering where I've been these last few weeks. Those of you keeping track might note that I turned 22 last month (for the first time in three years, I didn't mark the passing of another year with an entry, but maybe I've run out of things to say on the birthday topic). You might also note that I graduate in less than a week.
Sixteen semesters and six different bedrooms later and I find myself once again faced with the task of packing things up. Except this time, I'm not coming back. This won't be here to come back to anyway.
Here are the things I remember: a flustered girl returning from a camping trip making apologetic introductions, nights so hot I thought I'd never breathe again, that one evening on Junior Balcony that can never be recreated but will always rerun in my mind, the longest bus ride ever to Franklin Mills that cemented a friendship, red plastic cups and paper armbands, another night on Junior Balcony that again may always haunt me.
The first one to move in and the last to leave, the way South Philly looks sparkles gold at night in the distance, watching planes take off and land with a knot in my stomach, missing deadlines and grad student rallys, the first time I ever saw the inside of Smoke's (the truth: I only said yes because he said he could get me in but I'm not sorry I did), an awful couch that was a great place to talk.
Walking through streets that made no sense until my feet made them familiar (again), worrying, for the first time ever, about my accent, three crazy English girls who threatened to kidnap me. Wasting countless quarters on Erotic Photo Hunt, drunk cleaning parties and the happy revelation that wherever I went, there'd be someone worth meeting.
Watching your hand during the first 90 minutes of Citizen Kane with more anticipation than I have ever watched any hand before. Walking home from work at dawn. The sting of chloraseptic spray and taste in my mouth that was so hard to shake. A windowless office and sleepless nights. Driving to 69th Street, just to go to Pizza Hut.
More than I can ever say.
I feel like I'm writing in a yearbook. I guess this site has sort of been like that, in some ways, over the years. I don't know.
Just under 49 months ago, I went to my senior prom. I didn't like my hair, I tore my dress at the end of the evening and my date drove me crazy. When I finally arrived at the afterparty, I remember changing, going outside and throwing myself down on the still-warm hood of a car, in tears. I said I didn't know how I was going to move to Philly. How I didn't know anyone there. How I wouldn't be able to hack it. How I'd be alone and lonely and left out of all the fun I imagined would be going on in Boston.
It seems silly now, that those were the things I worried about. None of them turned out to be true: I met people. Some turned out to be great, some turned out to be idiots; the former became my friends, the latter became my comfort. I don't really know where I'll be a year from now, or how I'll hack it. But I know I will.
There are other things I remember too: along the lines of thud in your stomach and the life seems to continue but how, is it, exactly, that this bad dream doesn't seem to be one you can wake up from? Along the lines of waiting for things that will never come. Of holding out hope for people you know are hopeless. And leaving ones you don't want to.
This is the sort of entry I hate looking at later. It's all drippy sentimental and ridiculous and I don't expect you to read through it. It's also too vague to be rewarding in the end. But tune in again next week, kids, and maybe you'll get some answers.
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