About That Time

It is 12:30 am on a Saturday and I am sitting in the basement of the place where I work attempting to study for a class that will inevitably destroy my mental health in the coming week. It is 12:30 am on a Saturday and I am fighting back tears but they still manage to roll down my cheeks and onto the papers that lay in front of me as I think about everything that I am going to miss when these two weeks are up.

Music has always been something that can calm me down, but for some reason the playlist titled “Bittersweet Early 2000’s Nostalgia” is not helping the situation. So I sit there and cry. I cry for what feels like forever and just let the emotions run through me until they erupt and trickle down my cheeks like hot lava. I want to call my mom, but it’s now 1 am and I know that she is asleep… So I sit and think some more.

I have been joking about this moment in time for about a month now. The moment when it all starts to hit me like a train that is going to run off the tracks. So as this playlist continues to play in my ears, and I continue to cry, I thought about how this is the moment that I have been thinking would never come. Not because I don’t feel, but because I feel too much and don’t want to admit this yet.

I kept saying that I think I am broken. Broken because there is so much to be emotional about, and so little time left. Broken because I hadn’t cried yet, when normally that is all I would be doing. This is the start of the end, but it is also just the gateway to the beginning, and it is now 1:30 am on a Saturday and I am writing to you. Whoever you may be. I am writing to you because that is all I know how to do to express my feelings anymore.

I remember when I was in 5th grade and it was the last day of school. Everyone was excited to be going to middle school in the coming year, but I was crying during the movie that we were watching because I was convinced that I was never going to see any of the people I called friends again. Crying because I was scared of change.

I wish I could take little 11 year-old me and hug her. Tell her that there are always going to be things that change in our lives, but the important people and moments will always stay. The memories, the moments that we will cherish, they stick with you. Sometimes change can be good. It is always going to be something that is scary, but it can be so, so good.

I remember in high school, when I was saying goodbye to some of the people that I called my best friends, and not a tear rolled down my cheek. I remember celebrating the culmination of all the hard work that I had done and what it meant to be a graduating senior. Yearbooks signed, gowns steamed, hair curled. I was ready for this moment… until I saw my friends crying. That Summer before my first year of college flew by and before I knew it, I was being moved into my first dorm room by those same people I called my best friends. When they left that day, I cried so hard because I had to do this college thing without them. For the first time in years, I couldn’t just call Jillian when I wanted to spend the night. Change is scary.

I remember when Lex, Dan, Quel, and I all became roommates. That year was probably one of my favorites. That was the year of adventures and the year of celebrating my mom being sober for 365 days. It was the year that I got into the education program, made the A-Team, and felt the most ‘myself’ that I had in years. Lex and I always said that we would never be roommates whenever people asked us senior year of high school… man, do things change.

I also remember this past Summer when I had to say goodbye to Lex as she officially graduated. I remember crying so hard when she closed our front door for the last time, and I remember calling my mom just to try and calm down because the thought of having to do one more year of schooling without the person who had been by my side for so long was terrifying. I remember when I found out that Dan and Quel would both be leaving not long after Lex did… they would branch off in different directions about six months later. I remember thinking that I couldn’t make it through this last semester. But I did it.

So here I am. It is 3 am on a Saturday and I am two weeks away from walking across the stage at commencement. Here I am writing about all the changes that helped me grow into the person that I am today. It is 3 am on a Saturday two weeks away from when I have to say goodbye to the place where it took me years to finally feel at home. But man, does it feel like home. And the people I have met have changed this experience more than I would like to admit, but they are what helped make all the memories- both the good and the bad- and shape the experience.

It is now 3:30 am on a Saturday and I am sitting at work, but it is about that time when I start to feel all the things that I have been pushing off for so long. So here I am, at the desk, crying like a baby and hoping that no one comes in for at least another half an hour and thinking about all the changes that I have gone through to get to this point in my life… and it is far from over.

It’s about that time to start feeling nostalgic. To start feeling all the feelings. It’s about that time when I begin to say my goodbyes, but also say hello to the changes that are coming. It’s about that time but I think I may finally be ready.