My classes are coming to conclusion rather abruptly; it seems as if my eyelashes had barely brushed my cheek but once to blink, and suddenly I’m completely finished with all classes but two. I have exempted myself from my race and gender final as well as my art history final by averaging over a ninety-six on my previous exams, and my honors composition class hasn’t a final or concluding activity, thank god. The two finals that I do have to take are in my History of Aviation class and my American History class, unfortunately, so I will have to commit myself to refraining from mixing up dates and facts. I’m not too worried about either final, however, and I have the beginning of next week to prepare for both, so the pressure one would normally expect from finals week is completely nonexistent.

I don’t mourn the absence of absolute bedlam in my last week at this university, but this chapter of my life is coming to a close so silently and composedly that I don’t quite know what to think. Even though this period of my life is characterized by several adjustments and changes- changing universities and beginning anew at the DAAP program, moving thirty minutes northward into my father’s new house and finding a new job accordingly- the lack of disruption in my life is unsettling. Though I have not yet left northern Kentucky, the comfort provided by the knowledge of the visual features of the town has already begun to subside as if high tide has come and now must go, and the snug complacency that once washed over me is creeping back to its mother ocean and the individuals chosen to enjoy it. My father’s house is empty and therefore different, and the thrill of having my own space is overwhelmed by the calloused touch of a couch that is never sat on and the absence of the noises of my father’s tinkering in the basement. I am a creature of comfort, but my emotional ties are proving more flexible that I thought them to be. I can always visit past places and therefore must not mourn transition; Schneider’s Ice cream parlor will still be in Bellevue even though I am not. It will not be the same, of course, as it once was, but that is the nature of change and progression. We would be foolish to cling forever to certain periods of our lives, for all moments in time were born simply to change and define us and to then end.