Hide and Go Seek. I'm it.

Blank walls. Echos. My life in boxes.

Graduation was one week ago. This is my last night in my first apartment. I am lying on some bedding on the floor of an almost completely bare room in an otherwise completely bare apartment. On top of that it is late so of course I'm feeling deep and philosophical.

It's amazing what can change in 10 short months. I remember the first time I entered this apartment I thought it was so full of choices and independence and it was exciting but scary. Now as I leave I see the same thing, but I don't know how to respond to it. Then it was all about furniture arrangements and living by my own (and Anna's) rules. Now it's about going out into the real world and deciding what to do with my life and where to live. For the past three years I have seen friends graduate and enter the "real world" and somehow things always work out for them which is why I think I've been able to keep it together this long. Everyone keeps saying 'Don't worry, everything will be fine. It'll all work out' but it's hard to believe that when only a handful of your friends have job offers and most of them are returning positions from previous summers.

I don't know what I want and therefore I don't know how to go about getting there. It's amazing to me how a person can enter a school year with a pretty solid mindset, goals, and enthusiasm but 10 months later leave with a completely different mindset, those goals gone with no appeal, and lackluster motivation. And contrary to popular belief, hearing "I didn't know what I wanted at 21 either" isn't helpful. It's somewhat reassuring, but not helpful.

It's time to move on, however. Whether I'm ready or not. As I look around I no longer see an empty living room but rather the place where friends gathered for my 21st birthday; not a kitchen but a stove that hated me and threatened my life daily; not a shower but the place where Anna and Jess hid to try to scare me. This apartment has given me so much more than I would have ever expected. What will the next chapter bring?

So here is a list of things I will miss from Kenosha and Carthage.

-Friends (students and faculty)

-Wartburg Theatre

-The paint room

-Lake Michigan

-Ron's Place

-Soup Depot

-Villa Rosa

-The Train that threatened to enter my bedroom some nights

-Wisconsin winters (Snowpocalypse 2011)

-Martin riding his office chair to his classroom through the halls

-Kim (not) thinking I'm funny

-Tommy's jingle bells on his shoes at Christmas (yep, I'll miss them)

-Slim's house

-Forum

-Neil-Futurism (Blood for Blood!)

-J-Term in general

-Sims and Wii with Anna

-Boardgame nights

-My ghetto-rigged king size bed

-Ling Ling

-Tau Tau Beta

-APO Flower Sales

-Whatever mysterious power stopped me from transferring not once but twice