Stephanie just hit the wall, she never had it all.

No, I'm not referring to depression or prozac use.  Summer always has a wall for me.  Since graduating high school, I've noticed right around the beginning of August I have an intense longing for Mt. Pleasant (which is incredibly weird if you've ever BEEN to Mt. P.)

Whether I'm living at home or on an internship or in Spain for World Youth Day, I desire normalcy, the comfort of regularity.   My college life evolved quite a bit over four years---I joined and left different clubs, participated in different volunteer projects, changed my major and acquired different friend-groups.  However, there were things that stayed pretty constant.  I knew on Tuesdays at 9 pm I was at College Republicans and Thursdays at 7 pm was reserved for Corpus Christi.  I could visit Ken Rumsey whenever I had an academic crisis.  Most importantly, my closest friends were only a text message and a 15 minute walk away.

Maybe that's why the number of new places I've been the last two and a half years bothers me  sometimes.  I've lived in five different places: Mt. Pleasant, Clinton Township, Ann Arbor, Warsaw, Washington D.C. (twice!).   In those moves, I've met an untold number of awesome people and had some amazing experiences, but they're short.  My visits home generally last no more than three weeks---which makes it difficult to maintain friendships or feel like more than a visitor.  Mt. Pleasant has effectively been my home base for four years. 

Life has become a series of short-term friendships.  Don't get me wrong, there are people I've met during every opportunity that I still talk to and consider a good friend.  I have friends in Poland that I haven't seen in over two years who are anxiously planning my return next month.  Friends have gotten me through crazy things during the summer and study abroad.  From deaths in the family to weddings I've missed, I wouldn't be sane without friends.

I've made good friends over the summers, but there's something intrinsically different between investing in a friendship that is going to be around for four years vs. ten weeks.  And my friends at CMU are seriously like part of my family.

Over the weekend I started talking to my younger friends about how excited they are to move back to school.  I hit that wall of desire, but I'm not going back.  It's an incredibly weird feeling to not start packing for Mt. Pleasant. That's what I've done the last four years of my life.  I've lived in Mt. P. longer than anywhere since high school and it was my home until May.  Now, I feel a little bit more like an unmoored boat whose crew isn't sure when to throw out the anchor.

Permanence is something that our culture doesn't seem to value, but I crave it.  While I'm incredibly excited for Poland and grad school, I can't help but think that the next three years are very temporary and will play out very much like the last two and half years have been---a substantial amount of moving and another influx of incredible people into my life.  However, a part of me just can't help but look forward to the day I graduate from IU, settle down into a career somewhere, and begin to invest in a more permanent life.