I said goodbye to Stephanie on Thursday night. Tonight I’ll be saying goodbye to Leslie. Tomorrow is Megan’s turn. Then June 5, Jamie. We’ve all graduated and are moving on to the next phase of our lives, some making a more literal move than others. Seeing my friends, some close and some from the periphery, exit my life for the next few years is putting a lot in perspective. For some reason, the Matchbox 20 song I fell in love four years ago in my freshman dorm is playing on repeat in my head.

This summer is beginning just like every summer since Kindergarten. I took a mental leave from the world, watching TV shows and sleeping all day. Granted, I’m starting graduate school in the fall so it’s not that far of an extension, but still. I graduated college. Things should feel a little different. I’m no longer considered a silly student by outsiders. I don’t have a major, I have two degrees. All those things I wanted to do need to start happening. That book I wanted to write? I need to outline it and put my hands to the keys.

I didn’t get the internships I really wanted. I didn’t get into Phi Beta Kappa. All of those things I thought were supposed to be given, that I was entitled to, weren’t so easily gained. I did a lot, don’t get me wrong. I worked my ass off. But with all of that effort, you’d think I’d feel like I was somewhere. I’m just waking up in the same bed to the same alarm clock. The day after graduation was just like the day before graduation. I can’t fight the feeling that I’m mediocre. That maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t worth the $50,000 of debt. (Que Reality Bites)

If anything, my friends’ leaving gives me a certain courage. I subscribed to the idea that “making it” in New York means being able to go to school here, find an amazing job that none of my high school friends could get, making the big bucks, and spending the rest of my life as a hoity-toity Yankee. But that is changing. Now I’m starting to think that I’d really like a dog. I’d like to live somewhere where I can pay a reasonable amount for a nice apartment (without living with three people). I’d like to have nice things. And I’d like to be able to travel. Right now living in New York means just surviving.

And it’s been fun; I love it. But this isn’t it. My friends acknowledgment of this, their exiles from the great big city, means I could do it too. And, more importantly, that it wouldn’t be failure.

But I’m still not quite convinced. At least I have another year and a half to figure it out.