T Minus Three Weeks

Today marks three weeks until I move. Three weeks.

I’ve never really been the best sleeper, but that realization has kept me awake even further into the wee small hours of the morning, staring at the ceiling, trying to wrap my head around what it means. It means that I get to move to a new apartment. It means that I get to start a spectacular program in something I am fascinated by. It means that I will be starting out with no friends. It means I will get to make new friends. It means that I finally get to adopt a cat. It means that the most fun chapter of my life so far is ending. It means that I’m leaving everything I know behind.

My favorite band recently released a song that I immediately connected with. It encompasses all those things (except the cat adoption, unless you stretch it). Here it is, if you’d like to listen:

That song makes me feel better about going into the unknown. I put this playlist together as a result:

..I am a little nervous. It helps to be reminded that there’s something waiting for me (and to be reminded often).

My favorite line in the song is “there’s a thousand voices saying the time is now.”

It was absolutely preposterous how everything worked together for me to be going to Michigan. I told you about a lot of it in the last post: about how I got accepted to a program I applied to just for kicks because (I thought) there was absolutely no chance I would get in, about how it wasn’t even an option for me to stay with my friends in Iowa City, and about everybody being so excited for me that I had people congratulate me when I didn’t think they even knew. If that’s not a thousand voices telling me the time is now, then I don’t know what it is.

The song gets one thing wrong, though. I’m not on my own.

My friend recently brought up the idea of “forever friends,” and it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about. It put words (alliterative, no less) to something I needed to hear: I’ll always have good people in my life, even when we’re not in the same place. Thats what forever friends means to me – that distance won’t dissolve the relationship. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop tears from springing into my eyes every time I think about leaving. Merrrg.

Oh well. Despite most things in my life causing me to get this look:

I’m hanging in there. I am reminding myself of what will be sticking with me – my forever friends and the support and excitement of the people in my life. So I’m preparing to let go of the world I know, armed with the support of my friends and family and hours of good music (some of it is not even that song).

 

I’ll write again when I am actually moving, so until then, thank you for reading!