The Last of the Great Winter Breaks
It’s a weird place I’m at right now, between childhood and being an adult.
Not really even either of those things though. It’s just…moving on, I guess. I know I stopped being a child a while ago, but am I really ready to give it up? I feel like an adult because I live on my own, I take care of my own problems, I’m preparing to get my own real place in a few months. I don’t feel like an adult because pieces of me keep wanting to live this cyclic life defined by predetermined expectations. Get good grades, get into a good college, graduate, then what? I find myself at the end of that plan, and I’m realizing that this is what it is to be an adult. To not know. To not have anything telling you what you need to do, to be the only person who can decide among limitless possibilities.
Tonight is one of the first times I’ve felt myself saying goodbye to a piece of childhood, that piece that knows what’s coming next. I do know what’s coming next, I’m going back to school next week to finish up my last semester, my last four months of knowing where to be and what to do. But after that? Tabula rasa. Tonight is one of my last nights to live in my childhood home. Most importantly, tonight is one of my last nights to be with my closest friends, the seven of us more like a family than blood could give.
The seven of us have this same night every winter and summer, this one night that is the last one before people leave to go back to school in their respective towns and cities. We sit around, and the conversations go deeper and the laughs feel richer and more resonant than on other nights. The air is always heavy on this night. Like a small piece of something is ending. Every school holiday is different, is its own entity. We each become minutely different people every four months, but always come together in the same ways to share who we are now.
This was the last night like that, the last night of this routine. The last last night. The last real semester of college starts this week, the last real chunk of time defined by a preset schedule. Tonight was the last time that we all came together and knew we’d be leaving each other as students. The last real heartfelt goodbye where we all knew what to expect. This summer, we will all return home, to our sleepy bedroom neighborhood in Houston, only as a stepping-stone to become who we will be. To move on, finally, from our scholar-selves, both figuratively and literally. This winter, this night is the last time all seven of us will call Houston home. Well, Houston will always be home, but it can no longer be a permanent base as we all radiate out and find our lives where they will be, where we will be people. We will not return here at regular four-month intervals to share our newnesses and revel in our old friendships. We will visit on occasions with each other, we will come home for spurts and bursts. We will be established elsewhere. We will always have this home as common ground, but it will no longer be who we are and where we are.
This feels like the last real night to be home the way we know how to be, as children. The next time we come back home, we will be visitors in our parents’ homes, just waiting to move out and into our own selves, the selves we have been building for 4 years. It feels like more of a goodbye than it really is. I know these six people are the most important I’ve known in 22 years. “High school friends” is such a trite term, it so often describes those shallow people you sit next to in Calculus and carry on meaningless conversations with, those people you get drunk with on the weekends because there’s nothing better to do, and those people you will never actually talk to once you’re in college. These six are not those friends. We’ve been with each other through so much, and after four years of college, are still as close as we were when we sat together in our lunch circle, shared a prom limo, graduated from Bellaire High. We seven are family. We have loud obnoxious dinner parties where we all talk above each other, we sit at someone’s house and laugh until the tears are streaming down our faces, we share our triumphs and our defeats. We have honest conversations, squabbles, laughs, and ultimately love. We are a constant in each other’s lives and always will be. We will be aunts and uncles to each other’s children. We will be each other’s bridesmaids and groomsmen (within the year, even). We will always be on each other’s speed dials and Christmas card lists. We will always share major holidays and remember birthdays. After college we will not be saying goodbye to each other, only to this chapter of our lives where we know what to expect. Where we know we will be home every holiday and resume our regular routine. This is the last holiday for that routine, and that leaves something to be mourned.
Tonight I’m saying goodbye to part of my past, and I will dearly miss it. The part defined by old routines of friendship. But it isn’t sad, it just is. We are moving forward and becoming beautiful people. Our lives will be wonderful, and we will be with each other through them. We’re just getting started, and I can’t wait to see what will be.
Side note: I haven’t updated in a while, though I have written a few vignettes I may post some day. Mostly just little pieces of what I’ve experienced over the last few months. 2008 was a year of enormous personal growth for me, and I feel like I could write forever about it, mostly as catharsis. There have been big groundbreaking events for me: living alone for 4 months, spending a golden summer learning to have fun (and falling in love a little on the way), writing a thesis (and getting an A on it to boot). There have been national events that have created changes in my being: Hurricane Ike, the election of Obama (though I've posted a bit on both of these, I do have more to say, especially after experiencing the effects of Ike on the consciousness of Houstonians firsthand). I'll probably be putting something together to catalog college as I come to the end of my years at Barnard (God, is it really time for that?). I’ll get on that soon if I’m motivated/if anyone’s interested to read it.
Not really even either of those things though. It’s just…moving on, I guess. I know I stopped being a child a while ago, but am I really ready to give it up? I feel like an adult because I live on my own, I take care of my own problems, I’m preparing to get my own real place in a few months. I don’t feel like an adult because pieces of me keep wanting to live this cyclic life defined by predetermined expectations. Get good grades, get into a good college, graduate, then what? I find myself at the end of that plan, and I’m realizing that this is what it is to be an adult. To not know. To not have anything telling you what you need to do, to be the only person who can decide among limitless possibilities.
Tonight is one of the first times I’ve felt myself saying goodbye to a piece of childhood, that piece that knows what’s coming next. I do know what’s coming next, I’m going back to school next week to finish up my last semester, my last four months of knowing where to be and what to do. But after that? Tabula rasa. Tonight is one of my last nights to live in my childhood home. Most importantly, tonight is one of my last nights to be with my closest friends, the seven of us more like a family than blood could give.
The seven of us have this same night every winter and summer, this one night that is the last one before people leave to go back to school in their respective towns and cities. We sit around, and the conversations go deeper and the laughs feel richer and more resonant than on other nights. The air is always heavy on this night. Like a small piece of something is ending. Every school holiday is different, is its own entity. We each become minutely different people every four months, but always come together in the same ways to share who we are now.
This was the last night like that, the last night of this routine. The last last night. The last real semester of college starts this week, the last real chunk of time defined by a preset schedule. Tonight was the last time that we all came together and knew we’d be leaving each other as students. The last real heartfelt goodbye where we all knew what to expect. This summer, we will all return home, to our sleepy bedroom neighborhood in Houston, only as a stepping-stone to become who we will be. To move on, finally, from our scholar-selves, both figuratively and literally. This winter, this night is the last time all seven of us will call Houston home. Well, Houston will always be home, but it can no longer be a permanent base as we all radiate out and find our lives where they will be, where we will be people. We will not return here at regular four-month intervals to share our newnesses and revel in our old friendships. We will visit on occasions with each other, we will come home for spurts and bursts. We will be established elsewhere. We will always have this home as common ground, but it will no longer be who we are and where we are.
This feels like the last real night to be home the way we know how to be, as children. The next time we come back home, we will be visitors in our parents’ homes, just waiting to move out and into our own selves, the selves we have been building for 4 years. It feels like more of a goodbye than it really is. I know these six people are the most important I’ve known in 22 years. “High school friends” is such a trite term, it so often describes those shallow people you sit next to in Calculus and carry on meaningless conversations with, those people you get drunk with on the weekends because there’s nothing better to do, and those people you will never actually talk to once you’re in college. These six are not those friends. We’ve been with each other through so much, and after four years of college, are still as close as we were when we sat together in our lunch circle, shared a prom limo, graduated from Bellaire High. We seven are family. We have loud obnoxious dinner parties where we all talk above each other, we sit at someone’s house and laugh until the tears are streaming down our faces, we share our triumphs and our defeats. We have honest conversations, squabbles, laughs, and ultimately love. We are a constant in each other’s lives and always will be. We will be aunts and uncles to each other’s children. We will be each other’s bridesmaids and groomsmen (within the year, even). We will always be on each other’s speed dials and Christmas card lists. We will always share major holidays and remember birthdays. After college we will not be saying goodbye to each other, only to this chapter of our lives where we know what to expect. Where we know we will be home every holiday and resume our regular routine. This is the last holiday for that routine, and that leaves something to be mourned.
Tonight I’m saying goodbye to part of my past, and I will dearly miss it. The part defined by old routines of friendship. But it isn’t sad, it just is. We are moving forward and becoming beautiful people. Our lives will be wonderful, and we will be with each other through them. We’re just getting started, and I can’t wait to see what will be.
Side note: I haven’t updated in a while, though I have written a few vignettes I may post some day. Mostly just little pieces of what I’ve experienced over the last few months. 2008 was a year of enormous personal growth for me, and I feel like I could write forever about it, mostly as catharsis. There have been big groundbreaking events for me: living alone for 4 months, spending a golden summer learning to have fun (and falling in love a little on the way), writing a thesis (and getting an A on it to boot). There have been national events that have created changes in my being: Hurricane Ike, the election of Obama (though I've posted a bit on both of these, I do have more to say, especially after experiencing the effects of Ike on the consciousness of Houstonians firsthand). I'll probably be putting something together to catalog college as I come to the end of my years at Barnard (God, is it really time for that?). I’ll get on that soon if I’m motivated/if anyone’s interested to read it.