breathe in, breathe out

Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.

- arnold bennet -

so it's started to hit me.

last night, i was in the SAC. i had date time with abbie which was supposed to be followed by consecutive date with megs. meg and kay and doug came in from rehearsal and plopped down on the fantastic rug that seems to have been permanently left in the gee (and i love it). they ordered a pizza. within 10 minutes, there was a group of 10 delightful people gathered around, shamelessly mooching off of their culinary purchase. and it was great. and as i sat there, i realized that this will not happen again in my life. i will never experience something like that after college.

in new york, it will take quite a bit of organization to get 10 friends (and i feel i should mention that i will be feel BLESSED to even have 10 friends. please God, let me make friends) together for a casual evening. it won't ever be "casual" again. it will take work and effort and planning. things like that won't just happen.

and i love things like that. i love people. i love the people at GCC. they are wonderful. i love college. i love the college life of little sleep, poor dietary habits and reckless abandon of anything healthy. i love living in a dorm full of incredible women; no matter what time it is, one of whom will definitely be awake and ready to talk. i love our theatre. i love the Little Theatre especially. i like being able to use my gifts daily. i like being challenged. i like challenging other people.

i just caught up on my blog reading and was really struck by katie's post about moving to a new place and knowing absolutely no one. i don't know what that would be like. i've always known someone. in elementary school, high school, college. what would it be like to not know anyone? new york city was lonely last summer. big cities always are, especially at first. there are millions of people surrounding you and you begin to realize that not a single one of them cares if you are alive.

i've been overwhelmed this week at how many people care about me. how many people are praying for me. how many people stop me on the sidewalk and ask about my recent health problem. that's incredible to me. incredible. i'm going to miss that too; that feeling of community that is so real and tangible here.

whew. this feels sad to write about. and i'm genuniely excited about graduation and pursuing all the things i've always wanted to do and going all the places i've always wanted to be. but it's still a bit overwhelming.