Summer is evaporating, the days are slipping away from me. I accidentally sleep in and ignore my alarm on a daily basis. I have perhaps one thing a day scheduled, like a skype date or lunch with a friend—so bearing that in mind I should have loads of free time. Should being the key word.
With GRE prep and summer reading for my thesis, a significant chunk of my day is tied up. Then chores, spending time with the family, working out, running errands, etc. eat up another significant part of the day. Any remaining free time, the little there is, I pour into my summer projects of painting and scrapbooking—the creative outlets too bulky to haul to school.
I was expecting my usual summer ennui, the days and weeks and months stretching out interminably before me. With a seven-week summer (due to an Oxford end date and Georgetown start date), however, I’m struggling to cram everything in. I’m hungering for one of those summers of childhood: spending the majority outside in the sun, practically sprouting gills from swimming so often, being an indeterminate part of a gang of neighborhood kids, siblings, and cousins; popsicles dripping, tricycle tires whirring, jump ropes slapping the pavement, the crisp, refreshing turn of the pages of my childish books. Movies, forts, pranks, road trips, ice cream, baseball, barbeques—the whole idyllic summertime.
I’m adjusting to this pseudo-adulthood thing. And with how much time I’ve spent wrestling with the decision of my post-grad life, I feel all too adult. I want college to go on and on and on—but then again, who doesn’t? It’s college.
Lately, as I begin to look forward to returning to Georgetown more and more, I’ve been recognizing the fact that I won’t be returning to Oxford as well. And suddenly my breath is caught in my throat, demanding I pay attention to my emotions. My eyes are tingling, on the verge of tears. I miss Oxford so badly it’s a physical pain for a moment, like I’ve lost a part of myself. Then it subsides and I’m me again. Fine.
The numbness resumes.
I wondered what it would feel like to live in the interim between two lives, between Oxford and Georgetown. It feels much different that that other transitional time I wrote of so long ago, between Georgetown and Oxford. It’s not bad, necessarily, it just feels very surreal; and unavoidable things keep painfully dragging me back down to earth: “What are you going to be?”, “What do you want to do?”, “Where do you want to live?”, “What would make you happy?”, “How will you afford whatever decision you make?”.
Oxford is a huge part of this nostalgia of mine. What a beautiful, idealistic, dreamy year that was, liberated from a GPA, provided a respite from the weighty questions plaguing me now. I want it back.
But really I’m too young to be nostalgic. I’m tired of worrying about the future, of studying for the GRE and questioning if I should be studying for the LSAT instead, of looking at schools to apply to and already bracing myself for rejections, vividly sitting through botched interviews I might have in my imagination.
Do I really want to go back to my childhood? Do I really want to live last year over again, even though it was the best year of my life? No, I don’t.
Because to do so suggests that then was better than now. And I’m going to be a senior in college. I want to spend a little more time looking forward with an expectant, positive anticipation. I have a lot to look forward to.
I find the most comfort in the knowledge that He grasps my future, firmly and lovingly. My fears have to be confided in Him and handed over; I pray for peace and direction, perseverance in pursuing whatever lies ahead.
“A man’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?” –Proverbs 20:24.
The future is there, waiting for me. And I have hope and faith that it is something worth anticipating.
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