Reflections since no one is awake but me...

August 24th, 2009.

I'm typing in my parents kitchen/living room/spare bedroom/dining room/breakfast room at their 3 bedroom apartment that overlooks the Blueridge Mountains and is actually over an Edible Arrangements on Enterprise Drive.

Strangely (awkwardly?) I don't know what to do with myself because I am the first one awake. This ne ne neeeever happens. Especially when the early to rise (do they even sleep? are they in fact robots?) sister and brother-in-law are in town. But that's neither here nor there. I grew up with a dad that would wake up before the chickens and hens reading his Bible, working out and going to Cracker Barrel all before I did the one-eyed peep at the alarm clock. And here we are in Virginia and not only does my dad work at the university I went to but I'm also the first one awake. Strange dear, but true dear...(name that song!)

Anyway it's double weird because today is the first day of classes for the new academic year at Liberty. And this marks the fall that the kids who were freshmen my senior year are now seniors. Does anyone else get the sense that life does not go on when you leave a place? And then you return to find things have indeed changed and the world goes on without you? I mean, obviously this is something we all know in our heads but can't always grasp when we're delved deep into the next experience. College was not invented for the 4 years I went to it. It's still going, Liberty is ever changing (thank goodness) and the freshmen are the seniors.

That doesn't mean I can't point out that this is all weird to me.

Additionally being back in town on this first day of school--the 3rd that has existed since I finished--it of course provides a great opportunity to reflect on these past 2 years and 1 summer that I've lived post-college. I've lived in 4 cities. Seen the end of my dad's 23 year pastorate. Seen my sister move to Europe. Seen my grandfather slowly losing his battle with dementia. Seen the real end of a merry-go-round relationship. Seen a best friend get engaged. Seen another best friend's office in the White House. Seen the tail of a rodent disappear into my oven in Queens...

It has been an eventful 2.25 years.

I was asked recently by a wistful friend if I ever "miss college so much I could cry." The brief answer to that is "no." Life after college is undoubtedly amazingly more difficult. And I would trade nothing for the 4 years I had in Lynchburg. But there is something satisfying about venturing out on one's own. Growing up. We must always live as if the best days of our life are ahead-not behind. Because they are. L'Chaim!