Leaving Tennessee

Today is a very special day! It is my best friend's 23 birthday and first day of medical school...my friends are intimidatingly smart and cool. Also, a year ago today was when I packed up and left Tennessee after 4 years of college and trekked my way back to SoCal. It was today, a year ago, when I realized "shit, I'm going to more school, I need to stop drinking 5 nights a week and remember how to write an APA paper." Also, when I realized I was going right back where I had started 4 years go: my parent's house. That is a post in and of itself.

I recall the exact moment I crossed the bridge into Arkansas and my surprise at how easy it was to just wake up one morning, get in a car and leave the life I had spent 4 years painstakingly building. Just like that, I no longer lived there. Since I was going back to SoCal and would inevitably be hanging out with my high school/middle school friends it almost felt like the past 4 years had been voided.

It poured the whole time in Arkansas and I stopped at Sonic because I knew soon I would be in the land of ton of hilarious sonic commercials...but no Sonics. My parents were in Hawaii and wanted hourly updates which sounded something like "Hi guys...you are in hawaii...I don't know where I am but it is pelting rain and everything looks the same. Love you." "Hi guys, you are still in hawaii and I'm still unclear as to where I am but I think Bill Clinton is from around here so that's hopeful?" "Hi...still on the road...still...ok bye." I listened to a book on tape (Playing With Boys by Alicia Valdes-Rodriguez) and Ryan Adams "Demolition" and tried to let it sink in that things were all about to change radically.

That first day I drove to Dallas through PELTING rain and stayed with one of my old roommates who had started law school. It was strange to see her "new life" and to see her in a context other than college but felt strangely comforting to see that yes, life did exist after college. We watched Michael Phelps crush records, pre-recorded Brooke Knows Best (she prepared for my visit...she kicks ass) and ate funfetti cake and the next morning she sent me off with hot coffee and my own pound of snickerdoodle coffee. Nothing like a friend who knows you well.

No real purpose here...just weird that it's been a year and it all seems like a lifetime ago and it's just funny how much can change in a year.