Final(s) Daze

You know its finals season when you wake up at a normal breakfast hour on the weekends. 9 pages to write in a day? Helloooo 10 am on a Saturday. We haven't seen each other in a while. Yeah, finals mean heightened levels of stress and lower levels of sleep, but they also mean the end is in sight. And all everyone can seem to be focused on is getting out of here. Every day I see a countdown someone has posted, or hear "home in 6 days!" My friends from home constantly ask me when I'm coming home, and we talk about all the fun things we'll do this summer. But what's the rush? Yes, there are things I'm looking forward to about returning home; Dunkin' Donuts. my dog. stars. Maya. Salt bagels. driving somewhere. driving nowhere. Tedeschi's at 1 am. Mucho Mangoes. Sleeping in. But are iced lattes and stick shifts enough to make me drop everything I have here and run?

It's so weird to think that it's the end already. To think about everything that has happened this year, and know that it's over. But I don't want it to be over. I don't want to have to come back and start over again next year. I need more time. To figure things out, to finalize things, to get closure. I can't leave not knowing. How is that so much seems to be starting just as everything is ending? And when I return home it's the opposite; everything has ended and I will have to start it up again. Seems a little backwards. Can't I just stay a little bit longer?

First semester I would could down days until I could go home. I felt that was where I belonged; that I was at some sort of cruel summer camp here and just wanted it to end so I could go back to my life. Now I don't want to leave? When did that happen. For the first time in my life, summer is too long. Minnesota is too far away (this is not for the first time. it has always been too far. from everything.). So I guess I'll start a new countdown. While everyone else's is getting to be in the single digits, mine is somewhere over 100. 113 days of sun at the Ridge, of making cookies with my aunt, of enjoying dinner on the deck, of surfing the waves with my cousins, of lying at NARA at night. And 113 days til I'm back, with a whole new list of things to enjoy.