"Fuck love. We're in college. Multi-year relationships are too much commitment for people in college."
You know, there are reasons people shouldn't say things like this. Mostly because they're asinine.
Here's to the nights we felt aliveAbout a year ago, when I was putting together the graduation section for the
Emerald, I casually decided to call it "reality sets in."
I was feeling less flippant a few weeks later while I listened to music about leaving and cried into my clothes while I packed. Reality had an evil grin on its face while it forced me hastily out the door into the unbelievably depressing, rainy Sunday that I moved.
Reality is an asshole.
But first impressions can be misleading. There are things about reality I grew to love. Employment, for instance. It didn't take long for me to appreciate the joys of not sharing a bathroom. True to my word, I don't miss writing papers or sweating over exams. I don't mind having money and free time or being able to read what I want, intellectual or inane, at the pace I prefer. It didn't hurt my feelings to leave old heartbreaks behind. I rather relish sleeping in every morning. And for the first time, I am beholden to no one.
Still, life in the real world is lonely. And so, a year later, nostalgia sets in.
I miss having roommates.
I miss having a social circle that isn't spread out across the country.
I miss long, meandering conversations at midnight and over favorite drinks at favorite bars.
I miss going to parties where I was guaranteed to see everyone I wanted to see all at once.
I miss the fabulous food.
I miss Eugene sunsets.
I miss walking everywhere.
I miss discourse.
I miss sitting in professors' office hours tossing around ideas.
I miss the dollar theater and the Bijou.
I miss the people I really liked but will most likely never see again.
Most of all, I guess, I miss a leading a life filled with drama, which more or less included everything mentioned above and a passel of other bizarre and beautiful things that I may or may not be able to articulate.
The reason this anniversary is depressing, of course, isn't that my friends will disappear or that there won't be new ones, new theaters, new walks, new bars and parties and dramas. The reason is that I can never get back all those things that were my life a year ago. This milestone is merely a friendly reminder from reality that I'm only getting farther from them.
This, I suppose, is what twentysomething angst is all about. The arduous process of figuring out what you do and what you are when you aren't a college student anymore. When the hiatus from real life is over. When you are beholden to no one.
I kind of hope it means sucker-punching reality in the gut and sneaking off on a new and better hiatus. Because now, a year later, I might be ready to do that.
Friday, June 6
daytripperBack when I had days off, something that will occur precious little in the next couple weeks, M. and I took a little excursion up to Mount St. Helens, everyone's favorite local volcano. Made me wish I'd actually gotten a minor in geology instead of just thinking about it. On the way up, we saw some creature features:
They kept scampering around our feet. I told M. they were going to eat him.
Lurking on a log, dreaming of tasty water bugs.
Unusually hairy. Saw them all over the place. Felt guilty about most likely squishing an untold number as they tried to cross the highway.
This is the view from the banks of Coldwater Lake. Those hills used to be covered with forest. Though you can't tell in this picture, they're still covered with trees -- dead ones flattened in the blast.
Looks serene, doesn't it?
"Did you notice the top is missing?" asked a crazy, v. humorous geologist giving a talk when we got to Johnston Ridge. Where, as you can tell, you're staring straight into the mountain's gaping maw. The top? Yeah, it fell off about 23 years ago.
Made a bit of a mess, it did. There used to be forest. Now it's a plain of ash 600 feet deep, though you can see the rivers that have begun to cut through it, and in some places there's greenery growing.
Magnificent. Spectacular. Everyone should go. If the mountain's not enough to wow you, there's always that crazy geologist.
