Graduate college: Check

This morning I woke up at my body clock time: 7am. The time that my body has instilled after 9 months of 20 credits of tedious social science classes, biology classes that alone make me want to cry, 20 hours a week of owning up to the job title as "nanny" and trying to squeeze the logistics of being an adult with in it all. But this morning I woke up and.. and.. I rolled over and said no. No we don't have to do this anymore well trained body, there are no tests to get up and study for, no papers we need to finish.. we are done. It feels so good, to finally be done. It only took 6 years to graduate but I'm reassured with that decision having visited 9 countries, experiences under my belt that school would not have presented me otherwise and descent grades to leave PSU with.

This morning I can finally allow creativity back into my heart and soul. I can dust off the journal, my photos, sewing machine and books and finally reacquaint myself with the opposite side of my brain. Where I'm living this summer is a little ironic and a tad symbolic. I lived at SW Columbia with my friend and room mate Lyndsey for my Junior and (what should of been) my Senior year's of college. Through ASPSU (PSU student government) I met her then and current boyfriend Ethan who I shared the adventures of decision making and advocacy via college and a youthful eager heart. I moved in with Lyndsey on a acquaintance basis and two years later I had an amazing friend. Lyndsey and Ethan now live together at SW Columbia and my room has acted as guest room. For this summer I was looking for somewhere dirt cheap to live in order to take off into the world in the Fall. With out even blinking Lyndsey offered my old room to me for a rent price I couldn't pass on. I was honestly a bit apprehensive only because I have had a lot of emotionally deep experiences linked to this apartment and this room. I dated my boyfriend of 3 years almost the whole time I lived there and a lot of memories of my early years of college linked to this place I once laid my head. You know what I mean? I was afraid I would wake up and find myself living in the past, haunted with nostalgia. However I accepted Lyndsey's generous offer and here I am living in my old room I occupied 2007-2009. Yesterday I woke up at 5am and walked to school to study before my last final. That walk I had done hundred's of times. The sun was rising, no one was out, the smell of summer in the air and I definitely teared up for a moment. A walk that I had done so many times and to now walking it for the last time. I thought of the person I was when I had done this walk the first time, the things I would have been thinking about, doing later that day and settled in that moment of growth. Oh rites of passage.
Besides that moment, no sense of heart tugging nostalgia has snaked into my heart, no regrets, no overflow of memories, just peace in relation to SW Columbia. I look back, smile, feel grateful of the life I have lived and turn forward even more excited to move on. *sighh. Queen of nostalgia is absent of..well.. nostalgia in a place that I thought would inevitable overwhelm me with such. Ah freebird..

Heres some photos of my new digs..

and this photo was taken when Lyns and I lived together.. in this same apartment back in 2008. I'd say things haven't change in the sense of our friendship..