"For what it's worth"

This is a post for my friends and family; whether it pertains to the time I spent being miserable, apathetic, drunk or otherwise while in college, this goes out to them and is for what it's worth.

I've said it in a few posts as of late but college is over. There is a strange mix of weightlessness, like I'm floating somewhere in limbo with complete and utter joy, accompanied by an acute sense of fear that things will never be the same, that the people who have somehow come into my life will be lost as we leave to begin to live the rest of our lives, hoping that in some way the impact we made (or hoped to have made) will have been enough to ensure that we will remain some small part of one another. Then there are those people who have remained active participants in my life since high school, when the same feelings applied but a lifetime ago; college was on the horizon and freedom was a beacon of hope, naiveté was a false comfort and ambivalence was overcome with a belief that the rest of our lives began the moment the car was packed and we stepped into our roles as "independent" adults, attending classes we believed would give us the knowledge we lacked to be successful, active contributors in our communities and society at large. Being a kid was great, right?
Families grew farther apart, others tightened and expanded. Sisters got married and pregnant (in that order, thank god), parents got older and maybe slightly more frail but were still the compass we chose to follow or ignore. Sometimes tragedy was the mechanism by which friendships were decided to have no bounds and the catalyst that transformed lifelong ideals and forced change that may have otherwise never occurred. Roles were reversed, enforced or assigned. Titles became more numerous and life's endeavors more complicated but somehow everything kept moving.
Phone calls were frequent and innumerable. Minutes and hours were wasted with silence because sometimes it wasn't to talk that we called home, but just to have the comfort that if you wanted to say something the line was already connected. Eventually reliance on our formers lessened and shifted to those in the present. Together we would commiserate and scrutinize every detail of a case, quiz or test. Some didn't understand the relentless dissection of every word, but they weren't accountants and couldn't understand how such a routine was comfort to us, even as we discovered every mistake and error and estimated a grade that wouldn't be posted till the following week. Group breakfasts often followed 8am classes and afternoons after tests and weekends, that started on Wednesdays, were spent and forgotten at bars, while Facebook became a way to archive and begin to piece together a night lost at Ben's.
I've come to where I am now and wonder what I used to be and most likely wouldn't be able to recognize who it was back then that used to slide down hills on a block of ice, chase cows on a country road or drive up and down Partich Rd hunting Rebobs (but really hoping to not find anything but a good scare) because someone's parents paid for the gas. I guess it's all worked out for the best, even if some of it really sucked.