The End.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

I’m graduating (for the last time) tomorrow morning.  The fruit of one year’s misery will be in my hand in the form of a fake master’s degree (the real one is mailed to you in July).  Sometimes when I distance myself from the situation a little bit more, I can’t really believe that I’ve labored so hard for a piece of paper that signifies a change in status.  Was it really worth it?

…

Yeah, the $10,000 yearly salary increase does make it seem pretty worth it, no lie.

My thoughts are pretty vapid, which is weird considering how much academic work I’ve done this year.  I found solace in a busy schedule and the fact that there was never any time to sit around and think.  So I didn’t.  And now when I try to get myself to, I find that I can’t.  Just empty space in that thing I used to call my beloved mind.  It feels like all the substance has been sucked out of me, and there’s just this strange bitter shell left of who I used to be.  So with all this newfound freedom to spend my time as I choose, I have one main goal: to be deep again.  Lame, I know.

So though it’s the end of one (long) phase of my life, maybe it’s true: something needs to end before I can really start over.  I think I’ve been wanting a restart for the past couple years, and maybe there really is no way to acquire that without just leaving the past behind — in this case, physically.  So I’m leaving the place I’ve chosen to be my home for the past seven (wow) years, and I’m going to  restart.  As much as the possibility of being unemployed next year drives me crazy in my mind and keeps me from falling asleep at night, sometimes you just gotta know what you can’t handle anymore and leave it all behind.

The unfortunate thing about fresh starts is that they’re, well, impossible.  The me in the new place will be the same as the me in the old place, and a change of scenery will not yield a change of heart.  But I hope that it will be at least a step in that direction towards change and that I’ll believe more this time around that forward movement is guaranteed, even when it seems like an impossibility.  Just gotta believe.