It's after midnight and I'm not ready for bed yet. Which of course means it's blogging time.
This year has been a pretty good one by most accounts; I was finally freed from the bondage that is school, I passed the CPA exam, I learned how to make eclairs, and in a couple days my former roommate will transform into my new sister-in-law. I am so, so grateful for all those things, especially the eclairs. Just kidding...I'm especially grateful for Kyrie joining my family.
It's funny how anxiously I awaited graduation this last year. For the whole twelve months leading up to graduation, I could tell you the countdown in days till I was free. But since I graduated, I've been drifting from day to day, pretty much, because I haven't started my full-time job just yet. I haven't wanted to go back to school by any means, but I've been anxious about starting the new job. This last week I've been pretty much depressed about it. Not about the job, actually--I'm really excited about being an accountant. Maybe some years from now I'll think about changing jobs, but for now I'm looking forward to it.
Really, though, I think I've been mourning my life as a student. Student life is a liminal state--many of us have left the boundaries of the lives we led as youth, but we haven't really entered the adult world. We often seek to define ourselves, find ourselves, and form ourselves. As far as I've observed, there are two main rites of passage into the adult world: marriage or careers. Until at least one of these events takes place, we non-youth aren't quite adults yet, for the most part, and we're not quite fully formed or molded. We're not in the real world yet.
But now, I'm starting a full-time job, and I have to leave the liminal world of the student. I am becoming an adult. And in that sense, January 3rd--my first day on the job--will be the first day of the rest of my life. And the death of my life as a student. For many reasons, I'm excited to embark on this new adventure. But it's a bittersweet adventure, because yes, it's a rite of passage into the adult world--but it's not the one I wanted. Sometimes it's really hard to be patient and remember that in the future, some day, I'll find someone I want to share the rest of my life with--who wants to share his life with me too. There's plenty that I've felt that way about, and there may have been some who've felt that way about me--but the hard part always seems to be finding someone with whom the feeling is mutual. But while I haven't found that someone yet, I still have to leave behind the safety and comfort of the world I've known as a student, and I must venture out into the world of adults, for the time being alone.
So while this January marks the start of a new adventure and the end of an old one, I think I'll take a couple more days to mourn the end of my life as a student and the beginning of my life as an adult. It's been a long December, and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last.
Merry Christmas!
