LJ Idol Week Break: New Year
My dad gave me dishes for Christmas, mugs and saucers and little plates and big plates with pretty flower patterns around the borders.
My brother asked me when I was moving out. He already knows exactly what he’s going to do with my room: drywall the two walls that are still concrete and expand his workbench so that it takes up even more of the basement than it already does.
My sister doesn’t want me to leave. She says I’m only really starting to spend time with her now that I’m out of college. And she’s right.
My mom doesn’t want me to leave. She says I could stay here forever and she wouldn’t mind. And I know she means it.
I don’t want to leave. Truly I don’t. This is where I’ve always been, a little house in a little neighborhood two miles from a little town. In high school, when most kids hung out at friends’ houses or at the local McDonald’s, I hung out at home with my family. In college, I lived on campus during the week, but then couldn’t wait to get home on the weekends. It didn’t matter that I spent those weekends sitting in a rocking chair in the living room doing homework. I was with my family. I was home.
But I know the time will come eventually.
At this time last year, I was getting ready to start my final semester as an undergraduate student. Although I hadn’t yet begun counting down the days, I had long been entertaining the uncomfortable thought that perhaps I had chosen the wrong major and the wrong path, so I was more than ready to put the last four years of stress and deadlines and classes behind me and move onto something else, something that would make me happy.
Now, I have been a college graduate for a little over seven months. I’m back with my family in that little house in that little neighborhood two miles from that little town, forty miles from a major city. I am happy to be back. But I still have no idea what that something else is.
Where I am now will keep me near my family, at least for now. Which is really where I’ve been all along. I had an apartment during college, but I only lived there during the week, and even then, it never looked lived in. I never let it look like home. I never decorated. I only brought what I needed to live on. I never wanted it to feel like home. Because it wasn’t. That little house was home. That little house is home.
My mom, my brother, and I went shopping at Lowe's today for a new rug for our family room. I smiled the whole time as the three of us dashed from rug to rug and called down the aisle to each other, trying to pick just the right one. Then, before we knew it, we were looking for other things as well. And I kept smiling, all the way to the check-out counter, dragging our two new trash cans behind me. My mom and I aren’t shoppers. But we were having so much fun, running from isle to isle. I was happy. My family makes me happy.
My friends and I sat around the kitchen table a few weeks ago playing Mexican Train. One of us suggested that we should record the game. So I did. Listening to it now, I smile because we really are crazy when we all get together. We’d be playing, and suddenly one of us would say something that made all three of us burst into laughter for at least a minute. Then we’d catch our breath, wipe the tears from our eyes, and plot our next move in the game. I was happy. My friends make me happy.
Where I am now is easy. It is easy because it means not having to think about the fact that I have no idea where I want to go from here. It is easy because it means not having to admit to myself that what I’m doing now is the only plan I had beyond graduation. But, as this year comes to a close, I am realizing more and more each day that sooner or later I will have to move beyond what is easy.
Right now, the boxes of new dishes sit on the couch in my room. But eventually they will be unpacked and put into the cabinets of an apartment or house that will be mine. I don’t know where this apartment or house will be. I don’t know when this will happen. There are so many things I need to figure out before then, not the least of which is which direction I’m even supposed to be going. I’m not so good at keeping New Year’s resolutions, so this year I won’t be making any. But I guess this is as good a time as any to start trying to figure out what I want and where I’m heading.
My brother asked me when I was moving out. He already knows exactly what he’s going to do with my room: drywall the two walls that are still concrete and expand his workbench so that it takes up even more of the basement than it already does.
My sister doesn’t want me to leave. She says I’m only really starting to spend time with her now that I’m out of college. And she’s right.
My mom doesn’t want me to leave. She says I could stay here forever and she wouldn’t mind. And I know she means it.
I don’t want to leave. Truly I don’t. This is where I’ve always been, a little house in a little neighborhood two miles from a little town. In high school, when most kids hung out at friends’ houses or at the local McDonald’s, I hung out at home with my family. In college, I lived on campus during the week, but then couldn’t wait to get home on the weekends. It didn’t matter that I spent those weekends sitting in a rocking chair in the living room doing homework. I was with my family. I was home.
But I know the time will come eventually.
At this time last year, I was getting ready to start my final semester as an undergraduate student. Although I hadn’t yet begun counting down the days, I had long been entertaining the uncomfortable thought that perhaps I had chosen the wrong major and the wrong path, so I was more than ready to put the last four years of stress and deadlines and classes behind me and move onto something else, something that would make me happy.
Now, I have been a college graduate for a little over seven months. I’m back with my family in that little house in that little neighborhood two miles from that little town, forty miles from a major city. I am happy to be back. But I still have no idea what that something else is.
Where I am now will keep me near my family, at least for now. Which is really where I’ve been all along. I had an apartment during college, but I only lived there during the week, and even then, it never looked lived in. I never let it look like home. I never decorated. I only brought what I needed to live on. I never wanted it to feel like home. Because it wasn’t. That little house was home. That little house is home.
My mom, my brother, and I went shopping at Lowe's today for a new rug for our family room. I smiled the whole time as the three of us dashed from rug to rug and called down the aisle to each other, trying to pick just the right one. Then, before we knew it, we were looking for other things as well. And I kept smiling, all the way to the check-out counter, dragging our two new trash cans behind me. My mom and I aren’t shoppers. But we were having so much fun, running from isle to isle. I was happy. My family makes me happy.
My friends and I sat around the kitchen table a few weeks ago playing Mexican Train. One of us suggested that we should record the game. So I did. Listening to it now, I smile because we really are crazy when we all get together. We’d be playing, and suddenly one of us would say something that made all three of us burst into laughter for at least a minute. Then we’d catch our breath, wipe the tears from our eyes, and plot our next move in the game. I was happy. My friends make me happy.
Where I am now is easy. It is easy because it means not having to think about the fact that I have no idea where I want to go from here. It is easy because it means not having to admit to myself that what I’m doing now is the only plan I had beyond graduation. But, as this year comes to a close, I am realizing more and more each day that sooner or later I will have to move beyond what is easy.
Right now, the boxes of new dishes sit on the couch in my room. But eventually they will be unpacked and put into the cabinets of an apartment or house that will be mine. I don’t know where this apartment or house will be. I don’t know when this will happen. There are so many things I need to figure out before then, not the least of which is which direction I’m even supposed to be going. I’m not so good at keeping New Year’s resolutions, so this year I won’t be making any. But I guess this is as good a time as any to start trying to figure out what I want and where I’m heading.