What I've Learned

As my summer in South Orange wraps up in the next week (week and a half at most) and I return to Missouri for my 4 weeks of summer, I found it useful to record a few thoughts. In no particular order, and nothing terribly profound...

Over the last 10 weeks in South Orange:

Not a whole lot changed. I didn't meet a bunch of new people, I didn't go to Philly, or Boston, or DC, or New Hampshire, or... wherever. I generally kept to myself, went into the city a few times, read more books than normal, gained a lot of work experience, and had both an incredibly stressful and, at times, decently enjoyable time. Newark is pretty bad, but it's not terrible in certain parts in the day time. All that being said, I'm very glad it's coming to an end.

Over the last week:

I supposedly shouldn't be a lawyer. This is what 2 of the 3 lawyers in the practice have told me (and I haven't spoken to the third). When I get emails at 10:00 pm or later from them, despite I know they've been up since 7:00 (or earlier) getting ready for trial; when staying at work until midnight or one am on a weekend night is unusual, but not unheard of, I realize that maybe this isn't a profession I want to enter into (or, at least, to the extent that they have). Maybe I'm rediscovering my policy enjoyability, maybe I want to see my kids grow up, but, paradoxically, despite loving what I do at the law firm, my time at the law firm is convincing me I don't want to do "real lawyer" stuff for a living.

Over the last year:

Central had a pretty remarkable group of people. Seton Hall is okay, but I haven't met anybody of similar caliber to those people I knew back home. I don't know everybody as well, but no Nick Ramsey jumped out at me here. I'm not incredibly sure I've jumped out at anybody, really, but once again it's reiterated that we had a special group at high school. The people on the east coast are okay, but I don't know if I want to stay out here. Maybe Chicago could be a compromise between somewhere big and cool and the midwest.

Ramblings (Lessons?):

All in all, I recognize more how much each of us is changing. With one notable exception, I feel I talk to the people that read this less than I used to. We're each going out own separate ways, paths diverging, until eventually the vast majority of what we'll have left are memories. It's funny - in movies, and I think for most people in real life that don't chose to go hundreds of miles away to college, there isn't as much a break between high school and college. I'm not sure this will make sense, but stereotypically high school and summer ends, you go to college with a few friends, you're friends, gradually you're groups change, and eventually you may or may not become more separate from your friends from the past... but overall it's not so different a process from gaining and losing friends in a high school environment. Now I still count my five best friends as being from Missouri (yes, there's a ranking system), but (again, one exception) I feel we're not as good of friends as we were a year ago. This is nobody's fault, and shouldn't necessarily be mourned, but it's a sentiment that causes me to pause for reflection nonetheless. I assume I'll eventually have new best friends... or maybe that's grad school. Or maybe I'll marry somebody reading this in 6ish years (and yes, everybody I know of that has this address is female. Which is an entirely other blog post in and of itself...) and we'll have actually met our "soul mate" at age 14. As Chris Lang, who is still in a relationship with Angela Stone after a year at colleges in different states, put it (paraphrasing), "College isn't for relationships. It's more for fucking random people." I almost agree with him, at least insofar at what the system seems to promote. Maybe it's just kids our age. Adults. Whatever.

So, after that digression, what's left? Before all (or most) of us stop reading each others' blogs, or updating ever (I'm glaring at certain people. If you just felt a twinge of guilt, it's you.), or... basically before we all go our separate ways, I know this is something we all said at the end of high school, but thanks for the memories. Thanks for helping keep me somewhat sane during the first almost 12 months of my haphazard New Jersey adventure. Thanks for being there for me, even if there is a thousand miles away. When all we have left are memories, know that I cherish each and every one of them.

And to the one of you that I've stayed up all night with, talking incessantly about everything possible, and... well, you should know by now who you are. Especially, thanks to you too. And if this isn't you, don't feel bad. It's not like I like you any less than I did before. I kind of hate myself now, given that I'm being all sneaky and alluding to things in this blog post without saying who the heck I'm talking about. But I'm too lazy to restructure this entire post to avoid saying this, and don't want to delete it. ...Crap. Let's just move on. This wasn't the point of the post anyway. That was all that moving apart/learning/you're all so special to me. That was the point. Remember that part. And something about the East Coast. I think that it's okay, but not overwhelmingly great. That sounds good.

I feel like I have a few more things to say about relationships in general as we grow older, and the prospect of actually having something somewhat serious with somebody that we don't have to wait 3 years to actually materialize becomes, well, almost- sort of- close for me (end of college, maybe? During grad school?), but that's going to be another post. As you can probably tell by the poor grammar and syntax of this post, to say nothing of the post-time and the almost nonsensical punctuation, it's late, and I'm tired. So, once again, love you all.

Go to the link:

http://xkcd.com/610/