Howdy.

How’s July?

You know it’s summer when you wake up to sunny blue sky and panic, thinking it’s noon, only to see that it’s 6:45. And you definitely know when you push your window open and feel like you’re cutting through a wet curtain of hot air. All to say, good morning. I turned in the keys to my first apartment today. This is about all that flooded my mind as I did so.

WALKING OUT THE DOOR

I know that I keep writing about this, but this is last one. I know, because today I walked out the door of my first apartment for the last time.

It was strange, because even through all of the boxing and packing and cleaning, it didn’t really hit me that I would never be coming back until I was standing in that doorway, watching my arm pull the door closed. All at once, I was seeing myself years ago pushing that door open and stepping inside of what would become a sort of cocoon for me. I jumped inside. I sprang around. It felt so big and important and full of possibility back then. Walking out today, my dad asked me, half-jokingly because he has heard all of my college rants about not fitting in and despising my alcoholic peers and god knows what else, did you have any good times in there? I smiled. For one moment all of the pain and loneliness and heartbreak melted off of those walls like hot wax and all that I saw was the sweetness of my college days. For as brief and as mutilated by global events as they felt, they were mine. They grew me. So yeah, dad. Yeah, I had some good times. And then that door, that god forsaken, heavier than life itself door that would wake me up all weekend long, slammed shut for the last time.

ALL SET?

The simplicity of what came next surprised me. I slipped my keys into an envelope, wrote down my name, and handed it to the nineteen year old working the front desk. Is that all? I asked. That’s all. You’re all set to go. Set to go? That felt a lot like when they pull the bar down over you on the rollercoaster and you know that there is no going back, that you’re about to be hurled through space and time at a velocity that you never see coming. Okay. Thank you. Have a nice day. See you—never again. I walked out the back door, the one I used to hip check when both of my arms were carrying paper grocery bags, the one that I used to crawl through at night after working late on magazine drafts, the one that meant home, and watched it close. And that was a strange feeling because I didn’t have my keys. I didn’t have any way of getting back inside, even if I wanted to. I don’t have any way of getting back into those years, those days, those late nights, even if I wanted to. Suddenly, I was the one standing on the outside, looking in. I felt oddly cut off, severed, yet so free and light. I did my time. I bought the noise cancelling headphones and put up with the crazy roommates. And thank god that’s over, but how immense it felt to walk away anyway. I’m “all set to go”. I’m getting off of one rollercoaster and onto the next. And the thing about rollercoasters is that as frightening and as lethal as they may look from the ground, you still get on. We’re constantly getting on. We just trade one ride for another.

ORIENTATION?

As I was leaving, I saw all of the incoming freshmen walking in to orientation. How does one spot a freshman? Easy. They look just like angsty teens but they have a mom clutching one of their arms for dear life and a dad patting the shoulder of the other as he looks around and reminisces over his own glory days at Delta Sigma Phi. Bonus points if they are decked out in their freshly purchased “college mom/dad” merchandise from the gift store. Amazing.

But thing that really caught my attention were the orientation banners everywhere. I never had an orientation. If I did, it was on Zoom. I’ve been orienting myself for the last three years. So a part of me felt like I could walk right in and join them. Maybe I would meet my best friend while standing in line like my older brother did at his orientation. Maybe then I wouldn’t have this gaping hole in my memory where my freshman year of college should be. Maybe being a senior wouldn’t be as trippy as it is for me now. Maybe I could pass, try the whole thing over again, even if I would rather be launched into outer space. But then I saw their faces. Their dropping jaws. Their virgin eyes. They had this look and this walk that both said these are going to be the best years of my life. Let’s not tell them. Because my face? It doesn’t look like that anymore. Not for this place anyway. I’m bright-eyed for another time of my life that I’m sure that I look just as naive dreaming about. But that’s okay. Don’t tell me.

Love, m.

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