Moving on, literally and figuratively

There's something really eerie about returning to a familiar spot after the passage of a significant amount of time. While I think most people find comfort in revisiting a place they know, I find a pit in my stomach.

Tonight, I went out to dinner with my parents at a Thai restaurant around the corner from my apartment. I laughed and remarked that I hadn't been to that restaurant since August 2008, when my parents and I ate there after moving me in. I ate at the same restaurant with the same people on my move-in day and my move-out day (technically move-out day is tomorrow, but the U-Haul is packed up and there's nothing in my room but an air mattress, so it's close enough). While this didn't suddenly make me upset about leaving, it did suddenly make me think, "Wait..did that really just happen?" "That," meaning "living in Boston and going to business school." I mean, for a second I might have believed that we were still sitting there, my parents about to head back to New Jersey, while I was about to go back to my apartment and start unpacking my boxes and wondering what was ahead of me in graduate school.

I've had this sensation many times before. The time that sticks out most in my head was the first time I walked around the Tufts campus after studying abroad. It felt like I had never left, and that I had just woken up from this weird dream where I took in an opera at the Sydney Opera House, obsessed over Australian Idol with my housemates and then went bungee jumping in New Zealand. And then I had to remind myself, "No, that wasn't a dream. That study abroad thing? You really did that. It's over now. Time to resume life as normal."

The thing that I don't like about this sensation is that it forces me to reflect and to acknowledge that it's the end of an era, or at least some kind of adventure, before I'm necessarily ready to do that. If I didn't have a weird flashback to 2 summers ago while sitting at this Thai place, I would have just gone about my move and eventually, slowly, come to terms with the end of this phase of my life. It's not that I have a problem with reminiscing - in fact, it's one of my favorite things. But there's a safety in doing it when the memory in question is solidly behind you, as opposed to when you're still in the process of mentally moving on. It's like getting over a past relationship. Finding things your ex gave you is hardly pleasant when the breakup is fresh. But when you stumble upon something when all is said and done, you can smile to yourself and say, "Aw, that was a fun time," and then put it back or throw it away without a care in the world.

Maybe I just don't adjust well to change. Maybe it's a good thing to be shocked into reality every so often. Maybe it's necessary to stop and think about things even when you'd rather just keep pressing forward.

Either way, I am totally, completely, unequivocally looking forward to what comes next, whatever that may be. Onwards!