A Series Finale

I've finally figured out what this whole graduating/moving/leaving all my friends behind feels like.  It feels like the series finale of a television show, a quirky comedy perhaps, but one with a lot of heart.  The ratings haven't always been great but it has a loyal viewership who keep coming back, and now it's time for everyone to say goodbye.

No, we haven't been in a Sideways afterlife the whole time.  And no, no one is going to be chasing anyone to try and catch them at the airport, no one is grappling with life-altering career shuffling or relationship revelations.  But it's still an ending, and I think it's been a pretty great one.  This has been a week of "lasts", of visiting old haunts one more time, of drinking because we only have the excuse of college for a few more days, of spending time together obsessively because we're each afraid the others will disappear before we've gotten the chance to say goodbye.

As with any finale, we've had the essential moments.  The party scene, where everyone just gets drunk and miraculously nothing too regrettable happens.  Appearances from some old friends, guest stars now who've moved on to bigger and better things.  And many, many truly touching moments, moments of honesty and farewell, moments of hugs and tears, moments in which we acknowledge to ourselves that this could be The End, with capital letters.  There have been music montages, nostalgic conversations that always begin "hey, remember that time?", and major decisions that hang in the balance.  And there have been laughs-- lots of laughs, because no real comedy worth its salt can go out on a completely somber note.

Do I wish the show's run could've gone on longer?  Absolutely.  I could have been a part of this for the rest of my life, and it would have been enough.  But change is inevitable, and I knew one day this would conclude.  I don't know what's next, and I don't know all the tiny ways this experience will show its influence in the future.  What I do know, though, and what I'll always remember, is this time, now.  I'll remember this ending, and the knowledge that whatever the final lines turn out to be, it will have ended exactly the way it was always supposed to.  And I will be grateful for every moment of this experience, of every person whose name comes to mind as the proverbial credits roll.

Thank You Notes

My time in Seattle is rapidly drawing to a close, and this has been a time of copious reflection.  I've already penned a much more wistful post for tomorrow (the big day), but I also wanted to take the time to express all of the gratitude that I find myself so full of at this moment.  Naturally, I've decided to do it in the silliest possible format, with some "thank you" notes, a la Jimmy Fallon (incidentally, if you haven't seen said segment on his show, you are missing out).  Here goes:

Thank you, hipsters.  In my time here you have made it clear to me that I may be an elitist in some respects, but I'm not anywhere near as bad as I could be.

Thank you, Seattle Public Library, for never allowing my accrued fines to stop me from checking out books.  Your check is, as they say, in the mail.

Thank you, Housing Department of Seattle University, for giving me a taste of what living in a nice, three-bedroom apartment in a safe neighborhood feels like.  As a woman about to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing, I have a sneaking suspicion it's going to be a while before I experience this kind of luxury again.

Thank you, restaurants of Seattle, for having some of the most delicious cuisine on the planet.  My waistline and wallet dislike you immensely, but my taste buds do not.

Thank you, hills of Seattle, for the inevitable wave of laziness I'll be experiencing when I walk the flat streets of Chicago once again.

Thank you, Seattle rain, for teaching me that no, I cannot pull off the "casually drenched but still sexy" look.

Thank you, professors of Seattle University, for being pretty okay, but also showing me that in many cases, a doctorate comes with a heaping side dish of pretentiousness.  Additionally, thank you for either remaining ignorant or simply looking the other way when I've tried to pass off complete bullshit as an academic assignment.

Thank you, Blogger/Tumblr/Twitter/Facebook/StumbleUpon, for successfully distracting me from so much work.  I am sure you will continue to serve me well, even when I get a "real" job.

Thank you, Student Events & Activities Council, for compelling me to choose between putting 100% of my efforts into school or into extracurriculars and socializing.  I'm pretty sure I made the right choice.

Thank you, Seattle University, for giving me an education that, despite my lack of a plan, has left me feeling very much prepared for whatever comes my way.

Thank you Seattle, Washington, for being the home I've never felt I had until I came here.

And finally, thank you, all of my friends, for being the very best partners-in-crime a girl could ask for.  Thank you for putting up with all of my nonsense and endless stream of sarcasm, and thank you for teaching me so much more than you will ever realize.

What a Difference 4 Years Makes

In thirteen days I will be on a plane.  I will have gotten my diploma, a piece of paper that verifies how much debt I've accrued and how many dry dusty books I've read.  I will have said goodbye to the most wonderful people I've ever met, many for the last time.  And I will be closing this chapter of my life, stitching it neatly shut behind me without knowing what's ahead.

When I left Chicago for Seattle four years ago, I was bursting with hope.  I'd been trying to break out of the place and the life I'd known for so long, and here was my chance, finally.  I was ready for anything, good and bad.  And I've been lucky, because most of it, the vast majority really, has been good.  No, good doesn't do it justice.  It's been tremendous, life-changing, and educational in more ways than I ever expected.  I took a risk and, in a rare twist of fate for me, it paid off.  It paid off and I am so grateful it did.

Yes, I gave some things up to come here.  But the things I gave up then were all maybes, all possibilities, all question marks.  I might have found what I was looking for if I'd stayed, but probably not.  People looked at me strangely, didn't understand why I thought I needed to leave, to strike out on my own.  Some days even I didn't understand why, I just knew it was something that had to happen.  I didn't want to spend my life wading among the question marks, and wake up one day with a whole lot of would-haves and should-haves.

What I'm walking away from now is much different.  There aren't any maybes here, not really.  There are certainties, and a lot of them.  I could be happy here for the rest of my life.  I would get to keep the friends who have become my family.  I would feel safe, surrounded by the amazing landscape that makes up this place.  I would get to continue being this version of myself.

But the restless part of me recognizes that for the disadvantage that it actually is.  The wanderer inside of me isn't ready to stop moving, to settle for what I've found at 22, even though I feel more alive here than I ever have.  There's an optimism in this next step, the biggest question mark I've yet encountered-- if four years here can change me so much for the better, who's to say I can't find even more in the next place I decide to call home?  And even if that's not on the table yet, that feeling of instability, of not knowing quite what's going to happen tomorrow, it pushes me to strive for more, to be better.  It's the reason I've taken so long writing my novel while I've been here-- I didn't need to use writing as my escape nearly as often as I used to.  But do you know what?  In the weeks leading up to my departure, I've been more dedicated to it than ever; some part of me feels like if I can just finish telling the story, everything will be okay.

And really, that's been the case my whole life, probably always will be.  As long as I can write, as long as I can keep telling stories, things will turn out all right.  That, at least, has never been a question mark.

Getting Nostalgic: Six Weeks Left in the City of Rain

"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and place because you'll never be this way ever again."

This just sums up so much of how I feel about life right now.  I've given myself an official deadline:  if I don't have anything lined up in the job department by Friday, I have to book a flight to Chicago (my apartment is kicking me out the day after graduation).  Since I haven't really heard much of anything about jobs, it's pretty unlikely at this point that I'll have anything resembling an offer by the end of the week, so I've started preparing myself for the inevitable.

And then I found this, and it expresses my thoughts exactly.  I've been thinking a lot about how much I'll miss all my friends here, especially since we're all going in such different directions and may not cross paths again any time soon.  But I think I really am going to miss the person I am here; and more than that I'm scared of losing the progress I've made.

Seattle-Andrea is a person I like very much.  She's got a lot of determination that she just didn't have four years ago; she's loved and she knows it, and people trust her more than she probably deserves.  Chicago-Andrea?  She's kind of a fuck-up, to be honest.  She doesn't believe in herself and she doesn't go after the things she wants, mostly out of fear.  I don't want to fade back into existing as Chicago-Andrea, because then what have the past four years been worth?

I'm going to try to embrace it, because what else can I do?  I'll spend the summer writing stories for my portfolio and submitting stuff for publication, searching for jobs, and avoiding the bad habits I invariably fall into whenever I go home.  I'll read books and meditate and spend some time in the sun (I have been having withdrawals for four years, so the Vitamin D will probably do me some good) and hang out with my sisters. 

And maybe, just maybe, I won't miss this place as much as I'm terrified I will.

Free to Move, but Where?

So my Plan A isn't going to work out.  The powers that be don't want me to Teach for America, which is understandable, since I am lacking in an Ive-league degree and a Type A personality (not bad-mouthing anyone, just a little exhausted by the fact that wanting to help in underprivileged schools as much as I do isn't enough).  But I'm sick of feeling sorry for myself.

Naturally, my thoughts have turned to what I might be doing next year instead.  I made the mistake (and worse, I knowingly made the mistake, even though I told myself I wouldn't) of not having a Plan B before admissions decisions went out.  This of course means that the job search is on.

Here's the thing about all this that is proving to be both a blessing and a curse:  on one hand, it means that I have options-- I can and am willing to relocate to pretty much any city and to do just about any job I'm qualified for.  On the other hand, I'm now stuck with the enormous task of weeding through my options and trying to find something that works.  Oh, and that has to be done in the next 8 weeks.

I could take a risk and move to New York.  The pro is of course that I'd be in the publishing capital of the world, not to mention there are lots of places to work and people to serve.  The downside, of course, is that any job I get would have to have a pretty significant salary for me to be able to afford a place to live.  Other cities I'm looking at include the Boston area and DC-- I'm feeling drawn to the East Coast, probably because I haven't lived there yet.  I'm also open to going back to Chicago, but I need to be able to do so independently (i.e. not winding up sleeping on my mother's couch). 

I could stay in the Northwest, but for everything that I love about living here, I feel like it's time to move on.  I get antsy being in one place for too long, and four years is longer than I thought I'd ever stay anywhere.  My soul gets restless, wanting to explore a million different places and all too conscious of the fact that I'll never have enough time to see them all.  It's time for me to move on; I feel like I've learned everything Seattle has to teach me, and it's time to break into a new place.

One of the frustrations that comes with all of this, though, is that in many ways I feel like I'm exactly where I was five years ago.  I didn't want to go to college; I just wanted to get a job that was enough to keep a roof over my head, and make writing my real priority.  And here at the end of my education I find myself still wanting to do exactly that.  I guess the jobs I'm eligible for are marginally better (though not by much, given that I'll have a BA in English/Creative Writing), but despite this I'm wondering what exactly I've just spend four years (not to mention thousands of dollars) on. 

The coming weeks will be filled to the bursting with me applying to jobs, searching for places to live, saving as much money as possible, and tying up loose ends.  I can't really explain just how terrifying it is to face that prospect, paralyzed with the fear that 8 weeks will come and go and I'll still find myself without a path, a next step.  All I can do right now is be overwhelmed by the simultaneously wonderful and daunting way in which the whole world seems open to me.