I'm currently packing, not my suitcases (not yet), but the cardboard shipping boxes. In about a week, I'll be leaving California.
I don't feel sad. Instead, I'm eager to get back home. My summer job has been milking me of my energy and patience and has become even more consuming as my time here runs out. It's a perfectly horrid way of ending my four year stay.
When I was about to embark to college, worrying about living away from home (as I was going to move the furthest away in my high school class) and adjusting to a whole new set of people, everyone told me that I'll be having fun. Frolicking on the beach. Turning myself into a valley girl. Experiencing west coast culture.
Never happened.
My expectations never materialized. Now, people are asking me, "Are you going to miss here?" I could snarl like the stereotypical bitter Techer and reply, "Are you kidding? No! I'm glad I'm getting as far from here as possible." But that wouldn't be me. I'm not sure if I'll miss it (or the opposite) but I do know one thing. Memories from the past four years will fill me with regret.
What have I done? Hardly anything. I haven't visited the places I wanted to go or seen the people in those places. Instead, I've punished myself with working and studying and getting unhealthy untanned skin. There were opportunities that I passed up to do something that had a modicum of excitement for sleeping in. And what do I have to show for it? A scrap of paper that looks virtually identical to everyone else's scrap of paper.
I realize I can't turn back time, but that doesn't mean that I'm already set in my ways. How can I be set in my ways if I detest the boring and tedious?
