"But All I've Got Is A Photograph"

So I was thinking about the past and the future tonight. I'm not really sure what brought it on. Maybe it was seeing a friend of mine writing about how one of her friends is getting ready to depart. Maybe it's the fact I talked for two hours with Heather on the phone last night.

Regardless, it seems like a chapter of my life is closing. The chapter of Chuck the Master's Student is ending, and...well, I don't know what's next, exactly. Work, for awhile. So in a sense, I'm not moving on just yet. But I won't be here in the same capacity or for the same purpose now. Now, I'm just spinning my wheels, waiting for the next chapter to begin. I'll still be working at the Writing Center, I'll still be living in the same apartment, but I won't be a student anymore. Not here, anyway. And that's going to be unusual.

Sure, I didn't want to come to OU in the first place. Anyone who has been reading this for awhile knows that. Anyone who knew my plans after leaving Ozarks knew this wasn't where I wanted to end up. But here is where I went, here is where I earned my Master's, and while familiarity sometimes breeds contempt, it also breeds comfort. I may not have always liked it here--hell, I hated it sometimes--but it was familiar. Despite my best efforts, this apartment has started to feel like home. I've made friends, found old friends, and generally settled in. And now I get the sense that that's changing. I've been feeling restless since April or so, and I can feel the urge to leave building. I have the desire to get in the car and drive somewhere for no apparent reason. I have the urge to go to Arkansas, though it would be a scattershot visit trying to catch all the people I'd want to visit (since they're no longer all grouped together in Clarksville).

I was reading something the other day--Websnark, I think it was--and talking about returning to a place where he'd spent many years and had many friends. They were fond memories, but he found himself realizing that the place he'd loved so much, the people he'd loved, were no longer there. Oh, the town was still there, and some of the people were as well, but they were...different. He was different. It was a very bittersweet realization--that they'd all grown, changed, and while they could still be friends, the nature of the relationship had to change as well. That was sort of the sense I had when I was talking with Heather last night. Oh, there's still a strong bond and connection between us. We'll always be close, dear friends, and I'll always love her dearly. But...there's a subtle sense of loss there, too, a sense that we can't go back to the way things were when we were all at Ozarks together. It's best expressed in the nature of our phone conversations. Before, we called one another to ask quick questions or to tell someone to come by a dorm room. Now, conversations are a way of touching base, catching up. I had to catch up with one of my closest friends. I had to ask her what she'd done in the four months since I'd last seen her. Four months. Part of me is sick that it's been that long since I spoke with her. I know there are extenuating circumstances--I've been busy with school and work, she's been busy settling into married life, settling into teaching, and things of that nature. But those are really just excuses. It's pretty indicative of things, too.

I understand, on an intellectual level, that this is the way of things, the way life works. I know you can never go home or cross the same river twice. I know these things. But knowing them in your head and feeling the effects they have on your heart are two very different things, right?

Anyway, it's a rather meloncholy sense, a sense of loss and sadness. Admittedly, it also means it's time to move on. It's time to add and build and grow and expand beyond myself again. When I finished junior high, I had no conception of how high school would be. When I finished high school, I couldn't imagine living without having Wendy across town or living away from my parents. When I graduated from Ozarks, I had no idea how I was going to live without all the close friends I made there: people like Heather, and Chris and JP, and Adam, and Amanda, and James, and Mel, and Bob, and any number of people I loved and saw daily and didn't think about because they were always there, and now they're not. When Beth left at the end of last semester, I wondered how I'd manage to not go insane here this semester (and only barely managed to survive, really. Beth is no more or less important than the friends I had at Ozarks, but since I spent so much time with her last year, and she was one of the few people I really connected with here at OU, the pain is a little more immediate). But we go off and live new, separate lives, gain new experiences independent of the people we were and the people we needed. Those people are still important to us, of course, but our lives branch off in tangents from our own experience.

Anyway, I'm rambling. End of semester and pre-holiday stress, I guess. Or maybe just lack of sleep, I dunno.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Ringo Starr, "Photograph"