a petulant pattern.

I sense a life pattern emerging.

1.  go to new place

2.  meet awesome new friends

3.  leave

4.  be sad

In a nomadic life like mine, this is bound to be the pattern.  But in my last move and my upcoming move, I find it much more in my face and emotional than before.  Both in my move from Dawson to school, and in the next couple weeks from school to home, I’ve been somewhere for a year.  [Granted, yes, I was at school for two years prior to internship, but the year of a senior has looked different than the first two years.]  I’ve been somewhere for a year and generally speaking, for the first part of that year, it was hard.  My first months in Dawson and my first months back at school were difficult places for me to be.  They were places of adjustment, loneliness, and mourning the past.

In both places, I quilted, I clung to old friends, and tried to keep an open mind of where the year could take me.  And in both places, something clicked right around December/January.  The tables turned, my attitude improved, and I enjoyed where I was.  This year, I specifically think about the January term.  A class of connecting to new people, trying new activities, and I think opening myself up to that newness.  It’s great that this has happened … but then I just get really frustrated that I have to leave again when things are going well, there are fun people to play with, and knowing that this is the end of that experience!  How does that make me feel?  Angry, a la Chris Farley.

No.  Not really that angry.  I won’t throw punches or tip tables [yet] but I am getting incredibly sentimental and sad about what is to come.  I’m excited about the next two weeks – two weeks that are booked solid with hanging out, going out, and being around these great people I’ve connected with in the last four months and in the last four years.  There are new friends and there are also the people I’ve known for the years I’ve been in the Cities.  I think about M. and her family, Sara, and my Stillwater family who have been a part of my life here since I moved to Minnesota as a volunteer intern at Trinity.  

Another transition looms.  It’s coming.  In the time that remains, I hope to play much, sleep little, and take many photographs to remind me of the people, adventures, and fun.  Stories to follow.