Today dawned cold and misty. I gave into the rush that a weekend morning free from obligations can give; the person you love is home and the day can be dedicated to making a cozy nest for yourselves. It made me think of a similarly gray Sunday last fall—but that Sunday was laden with papers to write and projects to design, while today remains a blissfully blank square. That’s not to say I don’t miss being in academia. Of course I do, academia is in my blood. Fall feels incomplete without the briskness of rushing on campus through a whirl of leaves, the wind slapping red into my cheeks as I hurry for a coffee between classes. I miss the ability to be so self-driven, having the guidance of mentors and peers but being singularly responsible for the semester’s outcome. Now all that is behind me (unless I go to grad school which…I’m considering). I understand why people say college is the best time of their lives—and I had a mediocre college experience compared to many. When else is the future so utterly limitless? 

But our old lives are so easily romanticized. No sense in doing anything but looking forward. Homework-filled Sunday afternoons are only a memory now—sometimes joy is the absence of something.

(Oct. 18)