Response

My final semester of college is winding down, and like many of you (I'm sure), I've gotten a little nostalgic. My mom called me last night. She had been looking through the blog I kept when I was in London this time last year. She read the beginning of an entry I had written a year ago today. Time passes so quickly. When you're in the midst of it, it takes forever to get through four years, but lately even the weeks go by in a blur. I think about where I was (logistically/emotionally) one year ago and things aren't so different. I was about to leave a place I had fallen in love with, and the fantastic people and friends I met in London were staying behind as they continued their lives with or without me. I had to try to do the same when the plane landed in Kansas City.

Now I am preparing to leave (at least academically) a place where I have spent the past four years growing up and making friends. Life will continue as usual, but in a couple of weeks I will cross some imaginary line into something different. Maybe it won't feel deeply meaningful. Maybe I won't notice any change at all. It could be like getting a year older. I don't think my feelings of uncertainty will change from what they are now. I won't automatically have a job and I don't think I'll be entirely thrilled to be financially independent. I do think I might stop obsessively biting my fingernails. I might sleep a little too. And I'm looking forward to spending more time with the ones I love. Which means that Tom and I are taking a road-trip with my mom and dad this summer to visit my brother in Big Sky Country!

If there is anything I have learned this semester, it is that work is important. Doing good work is even more important. But being able to find a way to balance work and the everything else is most important.