| Here's a poem my friend sent me:
A year has past and now we stand on the brink of returning to a world
where we are surrounded by the paradox of everything, and yet
nothing being the same. In a month we will reluctantly give our hugs and,
fighting the tears, say good-bye to people who were once just names
on a sheet of paper to return to people that we hugged and fought tears
to say good-bye to before we ever left.
We will leave our best friends to return to our best friends.
We will go back to the places we came from and go back to the same things
we did last summer and every summer before that.
We will come into town on that same familiar road, and even though it
has been months, it will seem like only yesterday.
As you walk into your old bedroom, every emotion will pass through
you as you reflect on the way your life has changed and the person you
have become.
You suddenly realize that the things that were most important to
you a year ago don't seem to matter so much anymore, and the things you
hold highest now, no one at home will completely understand.
The memories and the stories from school won't mean anything to
anyone at home and yet you resent them for that, that they can't share
that happiness with you.
Who will you call first? What will you do your first weekend home
with your friends? How long before you actually start missing people
barging in without calling or knocking? Who will get pizza at three in
the morning with you now? How long until you adjust to sleeping alone in
a room again?
Then you start to realize how much things have changed, and you
realize the hardest part of university is balancing the two completely
different worlds you now live in, trying desperately to hold on to
everything all the while trying to figure out what you have to leave
behind.
In the matter of one day's traveling time, we will leave our world
of living next door to our best friends, walking across campus to eat,
instant messenger, 8am classes, and the perpetual procrastination to
a world that will seem foreign to us despite the fact that we lived in
it for eighteen years.
But it is different now. We now know the meaning of true
friendship.
We know who we have kept in touch with over the past year and who
we hold dearest in our hearts.
We've left our high school world to deal with the real world.
We've had our hearts broken, we've fallen in love, we've helped our
best friends overcome depression, stress and death, and we've stayed
up all night on the phone just to talk to a friend in need. There have
been times when we've felt so helpless being hours away from home when
we
know our families needed us, and there are times we know we have
made a difference.
a month from now we will leave.
a month from now we take down our pictures, and pack up our
clothes.
No more going next door to do nothing for hours on end.
We will leave our friends whose random email and phone calls will
bring us to laughter and tears this summer.
We will take our memories and dreams and put them away for now,
saving them for our return to this world.
a month from now we will arrive. We will unpack our bags and have
dinner with our families.
We will drive over to our best friend's house and do nothing for
hours on end.
We will return to the same friends whose random emails and phone
calls have brought us to laughter and tears over the year.
We will unpack old dreams and memories that have been put away for
the past year.
In a month we will dig deep inside to find the strength and
conviction to adjust to change and still keep each other close. And
somehow, in some way, we will find our place between these two
completely
different worlds.... Are you ready?
ARE YOU ALL READY???
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