Welp… just like that, my three week summer is moving into the rear view mirror and I’m lining up for my first day of 18th grade!
Everything in my world has been rocketing. Most mornings I wake up expecting the light peaking through the blind in my Belfast apartment and find myself genuinely surprised for a moment that that’s not where I am and I will never see that particular light ever again.
But it feels so good to be back in the States. All three of my suitcases eventually made it across the Atlantic (only a disquieting 72 hours behind me), all of my personal belongings are now slightly more organized across my mom’s, dad’s, and grandma’s houses, and my grandma and I had a fun time playing interior decorator for my little studio apartment here in St. Louis.
And St. Louis is welcoming me so warmly. Literally, warmly— we are on day six of an excessive heat advisory that will not break until next week. But somehow even in this heat, people, even strangers in split second interactions, are friendly, funny, and kind. It’s these kind of interactions that remind me of the importance of seeking and protecting community on multiple levels. The more immediate kind with people who share frequent and intimate spaces with you, but also the ones who we share space but may not know more deeply than recognizing their face. I am already starting to find my “smile and wave” folks, and they are remembering me. It feels good to be seen and to receive something as small as a smile.
As I write this, I’m taking a break from my pre-semester prep. I usually love back-to-school season. I have always loved school supply shopping and dreaming up new routines and goal setting. I still feel that way, but with so much incomplete and hanging over from my chapter in Belfast, it is a little more difficult to feel the magic of a new school year; probably because it isn’t quite a blank slate just yet. And for some reason, the older I get, the more unsettling change and newness gets.
But I’m trying to enjoy the itchiness in transition. For so long, “Get into a great grad school” was on my vision board and Passion Roadmap1 and now I’m here. For once, there is very little that I’m seeking to achieve. All I really want is to find my feet in this transition and to not burn out.
My job is, literally, school. But I don’t want my life to be school.
This is the biggest piece of advice offered by current students at my orientation, and I know it will be the hardest boundary to set and protect.
I’m looking forward to getting into a rhythm with sports and wellness here once the weather calms down a bit. My training block for the Atlanta Marathon starts in October, so I’m hoping to do some base-building and find the best places to run and bike. This will be one way to keep myself busy. I’m also looking for ways to build structure around old hobbies I have loved but lost touch with and ones I have never really done before— like writing and biking and swimming. It is much harder than I remember: letting go and letting yourself create without judgement or concern for the final product or to be a beginner. But I’m trying to find joy in this process as well because (if I stick with it) being a beginner has its own excitements, and is fleeting as well.
This is how I’m approaching school as well, with extreme consideration for the fact that I am entering a career path that is known for intense competition, general toxicity, and lots of mental-health deterioration. It’s probably going to take a while before I feel like I know what I’m doing (and maybe I’ll never fully feel that way), and it will take even longer to feel like I’m doing well at it, but that’s all a part of it.
There is another post I’ve been wanting to write for the past month, but it has gotten lost between my move across the ocean, the packing up of my things spread across two states, and moving across the country. I’m sure once I’m a bit more settled— maybe after I finally hit submit on the 75% completed dissertation I’m scared to reopen— there will be a Belfast: Reviewed. But for now I’m trying not to catch flies in my teeth during the catapult that is the beginning of the PhD.
Still, I’m missing my Belfast friends deeply. I still have not fully made sense of the fact that I cannot just find Nicole, Louise, Laura, and Mo in the library or go to dinner with Sarah, Gil, and Ellie or get in Charlotte’s car for a spin. It is an odd grief— a kind of tension between wanting to not be where you (are/)were and wishing (maybe selfishly) to take all the people in that place with you. You can never have it both ways— the place without the people. And there will never be a way to get that time back or to reinvent the dynamics of those moments— and really, we shouldn’t want that. It would not feel the same or anywhere near as good. We are always changing and that’s a good thing. Logically, I know this, but my heart still wishes to hold on a little longer to the sand that has fallen through my fingers but I can still feel.
Luckily, I live in a time where FaceTime and WhatsApp exists :)
Shoutout to PashFam-ers. I’m no longer much of a Passion Planner, gal, but they’re great.
Enjoy St. Louis! I love that city & there’s no shortage of good folks to learn from in organizing spaces there.
so proud of you!!! & always grateful that you’re choosing to share your mind and heart with us 🫶🏼