Ready

I've never felt more ready to go off to college than I do right now, sitting here in my bed, typing on my laptop at five in the morning. Five in the morning isn't usually when anything productive happens or people feel especially prepared, but somehow, in this moment, I finally think I'm absolutely ready.

It isn't about the piles of stuff heaped haphazardly in the guest bedroom, or the half-read summer reading book waiting to be finished, or the completed textbook order forms, or the move-in plans made, or anything you can check off on a to-do list.

You can prepare logistically to move out of your parents' house forever, but I don't think that's the most important part. It wasn't until this moment that I began moving, consciously at least, all the people in my life from actively affecting me to have affected me. That is not very clear, I realize, but it's a hard concept to force into the limitations of the English language.

I think most relationships reach a point where the people can simply no longer glean anything from each other, whether it's as important as life lessons or as insignificant as lunchtime company. Perhaps it's a bit callous to view people like tools that can outstrip their usefulness and call for replacing, but I can't help but feel that's what is happening to me right now.

Every conversation feels useless and strained, like everyone is just going through the motions because we've all grown accustomed to things going a certain way. There's no joy or relish, no excitement or fervor. All habit, tired routines. We've all been nailed into the caricatures formed by years of familiarity. We rely on the predictably we've created; while this once was comforting, so comforting the thought of leaving it was terrifying, it is now boring and limited. I feel stuffy and confined.

Most dangerously, I feel annoyed. The smallest things get to me. I want so badly to live a new life that things that belong distinctly in this old one are infuriating. All of this is coming from a self-professed hater of change. Nothing is more persuasive to me than the fact that I yearn for change, so often my mortal enemy.

Of course I love dearly all the people that have shaped my current life, and I always will. But I have to get away, or I will kill someone. I need newness, fresh faces that don't know anything about me. People that won't keep secrets from me because they fear judgment that doesn't exist. People that trust me because they haven't time to formulate prejudices. People that are willing to accept changes because they never knew the past. This is what I need now.

So finally, I think I'm ready. Things tend to be over-dramatic at five in the morning, but I'm grateful for these late night "epiphanies." Sometimes they give me the strength to face the oh-too-soon morning.


"I've lived in this place and I know all the faces/each one is different but they're always the same./They mean me no harm, but it's time that I faced it/They'll never allow me to change."