"On Certain Sundays In November"

I find it hard to believe it's already November. Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away. Christmas and the New Year are just around the corner. My final semester here at OU is only two and half months away from beginning. It's hard to imagine I've already been here almost a year and a half.

Each day marks the longest I've remained in one place since I started college. Oh, sure, I kept the same dorm room for three years at Ozarks. Even had the same roommate(s), Chris and JP. But we always had to move out for Christmas (though we could leave our stuff there) and completely in the Summer, stuff and all, only to haul it all back up three flights of stairs in August again (and that was always hell, let me tell you). When I started attending OU, I lived at home because I hadn't had time to look for an apartment in Norman. I'd been in Yellowstone all summer and only found out I was attending OU my last day in the park; when would I have had time to apartment hunt? But the last week of September, I found the apartment at Parkview. They let me move in, and I started living there full time the first week of October. I'm still there, having lived in the same place through the summer for once. That's a little odd to me, but comforting, too. It's nice having a single place to always come back to, someplace a bit more permanent than a dormroom.

Don't get me wrong--after three years, that room in McLean Hall was starting to feel like home. We always had the same room, I always had the same bedroom in our room (it was a little modified suite--a common room and two little bedrooms). There was continuity there. We'd hang up the same posters again, though each year there were new additions (I still remember when Chris got the Army of Darkness movie poster. That was one of my favorites). When I left Ozarks, it felt like I was leaving home. Especially since the home I was returning to never did feel like a real home. See, my parents moved over Christmas my Junior year at Ozarks, and the house we moved in to lacked a bedroom for yours truly. I sleep in the study when I go back to Shawnee. It's called my room, but there's always a part of me that feels it's not home anymore. Instead, it's where my parents live. Not to mention the fact that the longest I've actually stayed there since we moved has been about a month. The summer between Junior and Senior year was spent on the road with my dad every week, so I was only home for the weekends. The next summer was spent at Yellowstone, and we left only a week after school got out. So the longest I ever stayed at home was when I came back from Yellowstone and lived there for part of August and September.

So I guess I'm developing an attachment to my apartment, despite its rather ghetto-esque appearance and general feel. The toilet doesn't work well, there's no central air, the heater sounds arthritic, the floors are ancient linoleum that I can't keep clean unless I'm willing to sweep and mop every other day (which I'm not), and I can hear the train every time it goes by or the football game whenever we're having one. Despite all these things, the place kinda feels like home. It fits around me like a second, clunky skin of mortar and concrete and aging building materials. It's not the prettiest or most comfortable place in the world, but it's a place to call my own, a space for me, and I'm content with that.

All of which means I really do not want to move come May. But I'll kinda have to, or in late July/early August at the latest. Why? Because it's on to the next school. May seems like the most likely time to move because that's when my lease ends, and I don't want to have to sign a new one just to stay there a couple of months. But at the same time, I have nowhere to store all the stuff I've accumulated there, no place to put it at home. I'm a bit torn as to what to do, to be honest. But I guess that'll all be taken care of as it comes up. No point trying to burn bridges I haven't crossed yet. No, that sort of behavior is only suitable for bridges that've been crossed, because that means then I can't go backwards.

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: Rhett Miller, "This is what I do"