Is it Over?

Is it over? 

That’s what my mom asked, about my blog. And it’s a good question, because I haven’t written for over a month. No graduation update, really, not so much as a peep about my new job, commute, life, etc. 

A part of me wants to bookend this blog. It began with school, I think it should end there. I am no longer being Shipped Off. I am a Real Adult, tasked with taking my own self wherever the hell next. The idea of Shipping Off, I think, was the idea of a new independence surrounded by structure. Now, I’m lucky. There’s a lot of what-nexts and what-wants scattered in front of me like a jigsaw puzzle. I’m employed at a non-profit! Heck, I have a salary! And health insurance! I wear trousers! 

I am also living at home. So the newness of everything is juxtaposed with a strange return. This young adult is waking up in her childhood bed, commuting downtown with her parents, scattering at our various metro stops. There are moments of extreme excitement, where anything is possible and it begins to feel like the first steps of a grand adventure. There are other moments where it feels like a stalled engine. I sometimes feel a tug inside that is just begging for a retreat. Because that’s really what it is. I miss my friends and life at college so incredibly already that I know it’s more than the fact that they are, truly, awesome. It’s that fear that I’m embroiled in a game where there are few rules, and those rules are always changing. I want to go back because feeling at home of in this new world won’t be instantaneous. My base instinct this time around is to turn around and run. But I won’t. 

I’m also lucky because my job is intended to evolve to my interests and strengths. I get asked about it, and the self-doubt knocks me over the head every time. I don’t know what I want to do. A month in, I am proud to have mastered the copier. You ask me what my strengths are? I can copy things now.  And I can write…prettily about things I don’t yet understand. I am the absolute youngest person in every room I’m in. By far.  Unless there’s an intern. Except often, the interns are law or grad students and are actually older than me. It is a weird feeling. 

It may be time for a change soon. There may be a time to take my blogging in a different direction—towards the creative writing or political direction. But I’m going to leave my options open as I find my feet. So, it’s not over. It’s just changing.

The End

Your stupid hat is falling off, your hands are full and of course, you’re in front with the banner, so everyone is taking pictures of you.

Great.

After the finally let you sit, you stare at the stage and hear a buzzing in your ears. This is one of those landmark moments of your life, but all you can think about is how hot you are in this stupid black gown, and the fact that you are sweating, and you borrowed your sister’s dress, and she will probably kill you.

Your family is waving behind you for even more pictures. You make a face at them. The Ithaca Journal catches you and puts it on their front page. When your roommate texts you this, you spend a moment with your forehead on a table. Your family, however, is incomprehensibly thrilled. To them, you will always look great. You will love them for this but enjoy having something tangible to scowl about for awhile.

The ceremony goes like this: congratulations you did it congratulations but sorry the economy is bad but don’t worry you’re prepared roll with the punches everything will be fine take risks listen to your parents don’t listen to your parents here are some fancy Ithaca balloons you’re hot? we’re in the shade on the stage, move your tassle over, awkward blessing for a secular institutions, congratulations grads, you may now stampede out of the stadium.

During it, you of course take more in, but you are so darn hot it’s hard to concentrate, and all you can really think about is how little you’ve packed. And how little you want to pack.

You weave your way through the massive crowds by yourself to the meeting place for the Politics department, where you will eventually find your family. This is the first time you have been alone for a while, and it’s the last time you’ll be alone for a week or two following. You breathe in and out, trying to feel different. You walk down past the Hill Center and remember.

It’s sophomore year, and your new roommate is taking a scary plunge with you. You’re joining a team. This means a swim test to make sure you don’t drown in a lake. In your bathing suits, flip flops and gym shorts you run across campus because it is pouring rain. You’re gasping for air because neither of you run, ever, but also because you are laughing so hard. You have no idea, but you just found a friend who will quite literally change the path of your life. She will also tell you many inappropriate jokes, and not find having an entire drawer dedicated to Oreos weird. She will give you better advice than any PhD on that campus and will have no idea how great she really is.

You arrive at Emerson Suites, where you beeline to the water table and toss back three cups in about 5 minutes. You don’t feel as dizzy anymore. You take off that irritating hat. Your family arrives, and you take many pictures until people get sick of taking pictures. You go to the grad party at your roommate’s house.

In many ways, this place is home. You’ve spent holidays and weekends there, eaten many a delicious dinner, played with the puppies, napped on the floor in front of the television. Now your real family is with your Ithaca family, and the tightness in your chest tells you that this is great, but that it also signals some sort of ending. At this house you will be dragged into a wiffle ball game with your best friends. Your best friends run around screaming in dresses, and you have never ever loved them more.

You are a person who treasures time alone. Maybe you’re not the most social of butterflies. (You also hate butterflies, because you seem to be the only one to realize they are CATERPILLARS WHO CAN FLY. This is beside the point, though. Sorry). But with them you never felt stifled or trapped. They were more than family, even. They are more than family. They are a part of you and stay that way.

The next morning, somehow everything is shoved into boxes. It is so hot. When everything has been magically stuffed into the tiny white hatchback, you go back inside and feel your insides breaking apart. As you hug these amazing women, your face grows hot and you ugly cry. They are tiny and you know you probably shouldn’t crush them. You hug them tight anyway.

Out the door, you walk up to the car, packed full of family, ready to leave. You ask for a handful of tissues and a minute. You lean against the back of your grandparent’s car and sob unabashedly into your hands. This has to be the worst feeling in the world and you will remember this, the public sob-fest, as clearly as you remember the run in the rain. For it to hurt this badly, it had to be something amazing.

Four years ago, you shipped off. And it was scary, hectic, stressful, comical, beautiful, painful, difficult, quiet, loud, messy and clean. You shipped off and it was wonderful.  

Fight

Yesterday, I had the best race of my entire life.

Yesterday, I raced for the last time with Ithaca Crew.

Today, as I sat surrounded by my crew family, I was handed a popsicle stick with my last name written on it in sharpie. Then, I burst into tears.

That popsicle stick attaches to a board where line-ups are scattered every day at practice. Staring at that popsicle stick, I knew then that it was really over. I have rowed in the Tavelli for the last time. I have heard the roar of SLINGSHOT for the last time. And it feels like my heart is on the ground being stomped on.

I was fine my freshman year. A little lost, unhappy with my major, and unsure of who I was, but still fine. I thought that this was just how it was, how it was supposed to be. I was so, so wrong.

Crew taught me how to fail and how to fall and get back up. It taught me discipline. It taught me what pain was. It taught me what love was. It taught me how to fight for what I wanted. And now, it's teaching me what loss really feels like. I am normally very good at sentimental posts. But this almost means too much to me to put it into words. It has made me so, so happy. It has made me happier than just about anything I have ever done.

It hurts so badly to leave this behind. It is so scary to leave this wonderful family behind for the unknown world beyond it. I am not ready, but I have to be.

But I know this: I cannot live life without having an oar in my hands again. I cannot live life without motion and the mental clarity that comes with it. I will run and I will erg and I will find a way to watch the sunrise over the water until my body give out. At times of great transition, I think we need to make promises to ourselves. I promise to be an athlete. It may be naive, but I promise to keep the passion that pushes me towards politics. College is a bubble. It's a beautiful, messy bubble and I know there are things that must be left behind. But I will take what I can and fight for it.

The Last Race on the Inlet

I am a planner. I weigh every option with care, need escape routes and plan Bs and everything in between. That's why I'm still shocked, nearly three years later, that I joined crew. 

It didn't really make sense. It would be time consuming. You can't really put it on a resume. You have to get up at 4:30am. Spring break and spring weekends would be gone. Going to the bars on a Thursday? (Tuesday? Wednesday? It is college) HAHAHAHAHA...forget it. 

Claire gave me a verbal kick in the butt, and I joined. 

Yesterday, I found myself passing under the bridges, hearing my coxswain roar "SLINGSHOT!" and feeling that rush of adrenaline that goes straight through your fingers--one last time. There is nothing like that in the world. It was my last race on our inlet. We celebrated the seniors, and I think the faces really say all you need to know. 

 

Georgia, Finale

Some college students went to tropical locales, drank heavily, and slept lots on their spring breaks. I did four hours of practice a day, tore my hands to shreds, and got up at 6am every day. 

On the plus side, I got this. 

So I Went To Boston

I will always feel this weird sort of belonging in Boston. Some of it is probably that my parents both spent important parts of their youth there. Also, it's a New England-y historical bustling city of fun!

I crammed in a car with four other teammates at the crack of dawn on Saturday and we roadtripped down, scaring rest stop owners and laughing at the weird names of rural New York towns.

Then I met up with this chick, whom I've know for...forever. She's kind of a local. It's weird.

We explored Boston (well, us Ithacans did. Anna guided us along). We walked for miles, got Italian pastries, went to a Pulp Fiction themed cheeseburger place, and ate Oreos on the streets of Boston.  I slept on an inflatable mattress in her apartment and had the best sleep of my life. True story.

The reason I was in Boston was to do C.R.A.S.H B Sprints. This essentially means I was paying 20 bucks to be tortured in a crowded arena.

It was worth it. I beat my best time by nine whole seconds. See!

Then I couldn't really stand and was a little delirious, but Anna insisted on taking a picture of me with my erg. 

 

Now there is a picture of me looking exhausted, sweaty and a little dazed on the internet. At least I look happy. 

All of us did so well. It was just the best weekend I could ask for. I love these girls so much. 

 

Young

As a 21 year-old and senior in college I get to feel old--mature even--a lot of the time.

I have college figured out. I certainly don't feel "Shipped Off" anymore. Ithaca is my home. I have family and friends here as much as I do back in Maryland. I may still dress inappropriately for the weather ("WHERE IS YOUR COAT?" concerned northern roommates query), but at least I've finally accepted wool socks as a permanent staple in my life.

I classes I am comfortable to contribute. I am confident in my work. I don't have to figure out in advance where my classes are. Some younger members of the team ask me for advice, though they probably shouldn't because crew is just finally clicking for me. I am taking classes that are challenging but enjoyable. I get my work done.

I enjoyed this feeling of completeness and assuredness all throughout break. Then, miraculously, my future post-May began to fall into place. As I begin to grapple with even the concept of days of 9 to 5 and salaries and taxes and 401Ks, I have never, ever felt so incredibly young. I am lucky. I really am, to have a plan. But for some strange reason, after the dancing around and excitement, I feel like I'm holding my breath.

Maybe it's because the future is so radically different from now. That it's really the beginning of my story, of something I could call a career, the climb onto the bottom rung of the grisly ladder of politics. Maybe it's the realization that I've learned so much about the world and its structure, mechanisms, and eccentricities over these past four years and but I still know very little about it.

I don't know. For now I will remind myself to breathe and to enjoy the cocoon of dining halls and 6am practice and erg tests and research papers. That's okay, right?