There and Back Again

So I visited Mount Pleasant and Central Michigan University for the first time since this past June. In the past five years this is the longest I have ever been away from CMU between visits.

The campus looks relatively the same with minor changes and new buildings here and there. The Bird looked exactly as I remembered it and it took my graduating and moving 1200 miles away to finally motivate me to carve my pseudonym into the table we were sitting at.

I missed my friends dearly and it was so good to see them, sit with them, talk with them, and just be in their presence again. Even with news and events happening this weekend, when the chips are down (I hate that cliche' but it just came to me) it was nice to again have a testament to the type of friends I make and their dedication to me and our friendship. When one of the "buildings" in your life starts to crumble its people like them that you want at your side. Sure we had our differences and didn't get along all the time. But we were always friends, and will always be so. Thank you friends and brothers.

What really struck me was how easy it was to leave again. I was expecting to be hit with an overwhelming sense of anxiety and panic as I was leaving my past home. However, I though only of how much fun I had over the past few days and how much I looked forward to visiting again in the coming year. I guess I really am past the college experience. I am definitely not past the mentality or my friends, but I am most certainly not desiring to return to my undergraduate days.

I suppose I am just adjusting further to my new position in life. I am grown. As much as I want to fight it and wish that it wouldn't be so I have to accept the fact that I am no longer a "stupid high school kid" or a "poor college student" nor am I a "directionless twenty-something" I am a young professional. A twenty-something with aspirations and desires to succeed. That adjustment seems to be the most difficult thing for me.

The change from high school to college almost killed me. With new surroundings, few familiar faces, and a girlfriend who was more of an emotional burden than a help I attempted to move into a new frightening phase in my life. I guess until I visited CMU this past week I didn't realize how much my change from college to adulthood is very much the same. A good friend told me that I cannot live my life with my heart back in Michigan. I try very hard to live by that principle. However, accepting the fact that a piece of my heart will always be here is a hard thing to swallow as well. This adjustment will be difficult. Even with some of the previous mentioned evils eliminated, it will still be by far the hardest thing I have ever tried to do.

successes and failures to be relayed later...