October 2004

Gillian Woodburn • Time to Move On

This summer, I discovered a new inevitability. There comes a time in everyone’s life when “my room” becomes “that room,” when pictures and trophies are boxed up and put into storage, walls are repainted and furniture rearranged. This summer, my room became a guest room.

Actually, I’m over-dramatizing a little. We boxed up the stuff from Hilary’s room, since she’ll be getting an apartment of her own soon, and moved all my stuff into her room. But, every time I walk down the hallway, I head into my old room and I’m surprised to see beige carpet instead of blue, pictures and paintings missing from the now-green walls. For a second, I feel like the guy in It’s a Wonderful Life, like maybe I didn’t exist. Then I remember that everything’s just next door.

After basically not thinking about school at all for two months, I can’t put it off any longer. It’s not that I don’t like school or that I don’t want to go back. In fact, I think this is going to be my best year yet. It’s just that there are so many things about home that I’m going to miss: afternoons spent boating, the sunsets, the occasional deer wandering through people’s yards. I’ve got so many good friends here, and none of them go to school anywhere close to me or to each other. So, it makes me a little sad to think that pretty soon we’ll all be scattered through North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Iowa again, and everything will be different.

But the more I think about coming back to school, the more excited I get, too. This semester, I start doing research with a professor, which will probably help me decide what kind of a career I want. I get to start rock climbing again, and I’m even taking a class on it the first weekend of school. And, I’ll be in an apartment for the first time ever.

It’ll be good not to be surrounded by so many people all the time. When I lived in the dorms, it was sort of nice always to have people around to talk to (and to have my food prepared for me), but after a while it’s difficult not to have any time on your own. And, the more I think about it, the less I’ll miss food service.

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