Moving on Up... Moving on Out!

This morning I walked through the heart of campus - Red Square - and it was eerily calm. No students on Healy Beach, no one tabling for their clubs, a neon pink sign hung over the student run coffee shop in ICC loudly proclaiming "closed."

It's official class are over, finals completed, the campus is deserted, the only people left are graduating seniors and school administrators. Later this week proud family and friends will flock to campus. Many of my friends are graduating in the coming days. Forgetting for a moment that I, myself will be no where near the intersection of O and 37th streets that mark the gates of campus, these people who I have laughed with and cried for, these people who have become my family will be setting off on journeys of their own. I won't be able to call them up and say "Let's go get a beer at Tombs," instead they will be frequenting saki houses as they teach English in Japan or hanging out late into the night at anyone of the many clubs that dot the island of Manhattan. One has even gotten a job doing modeling... okay, okay... she is going to be doing computer modeling, but Pam for all the joking know that I couldn't be prouder to call you my friend.

This week is filled with bittersweet thoughts. I can't tell you how excited I am to pack my bag and climb on a plane to cross the ocean and begin walking the streets of China. But tonight I wasn't packing my backpack, I was packing up my apartment. There was no excitement, no anticipation. Instead I went through all the old mail I had hastily tossed into my desk as I ran off to class. I sorted through the papers, tests, and notes that marked the passage of another year of college gone. I took my pictures off the walls and packed my worldly possessions into boxes. Tonight is most likely the last night I will sleep under this roof, surrounded by these walls and as I lay in bed typing this I realized that I am not quite ready to let go, I am not quite ready to close my eyes and let this last night float away in a dream.

This was my first apartment, my very first truly mine apartment. While I may have had to share it with a handful of spider crickets and it could feel like a deep dark cave on the sunniest of days I will be sad to see it go. Tomorrow I will pack my boxes into the car and after I hand over the keys on Thursday, with tears staining my eyes, I will take one more step towards the beginning of this journey.