The Why: Cheers to Change

Let’s start with this…

I’ve really come to dislike spring. It’s fickle and timid, much like an indecisive individual constantly torn between two unimportant points. Luckily we, as humans, are allowed to have our irresolute moments because it has already been proven a dozen times over we hardly know what we want or need. This is generally an accepted norm.

Spring, on the other hand, is only consistent in its hesitance… and this is typically displeasing to those waiting for the next move or adventure. This season knowingly plays with our minds, doling out fragrant, warm days mixed with a hint of monsoon and a sprinkle of frigid winter.

But in this season, there is change. I usually feel a creeping instability by March, and then a deafening shatter by bittersweet May. Still, June is swift and quite suddenly you don’t remember frustrating spring in the slightest because you only have steadfast summer in your eyes. It has always been so, though I’ve only just realized this seasonal cycle in the last couple of years.

Speaking of change, if you couldn’t tell by the crazy influx of Facebook pictures… I graduated from graduate school this week! Pardon the lack of updates, but between family visits and two quick Virginia trips, I’ve neglected both my blog and laundry basket.

Purely of out cruel coincidence, the last day of my job at HarperCollins was also contracted for the day after graduation. Thus, for the first time in two years, I have no formal obligations – and not exactly out of choice.

No internship, no school, no job.

Remember when I maintained all three and worked nearly 70 hours a week? Well this appears to be the unsolicited opposite time in life. And I don’t think I’m fully appreciating the freedom such unhindered circumstances bring because I’m simply one to naturally go, go, go.

But I’m not sending out resumes this week. I will not tweak another cover letter for a few days. I shall certainly check email, but sparingly and with a “delete-delete-delete” mentality, because also for the first time in two years, I’m going on vacation.

Ah, the sound of that word. How absolutely glorious.

Since moving to the city, I’ve not escaped its all-encompassing atmosphere for more than five days at a time. Not that I typically want to leave – particularly in the electric, buzzing summertime – but a change of scenery may do this tired mind some good.

Thankfully, shifty spring is leaking into consistent summer. I will wake up every morning and the air will be hot, the days will be long, and the nights will be one enthralling venture after another. I will take cold showers, map out beach trips, and consume Mr. Softie ice cream cones. I will get up too early and stay out too late because I can hardly have enough of this season. Even in the most miserable heat, I won’t mind the oppressive air so much because I will have known it was coming. The heat always comes. The heat always comes because it is reliable and unwavering.

There is something so comforting in that thought.

Freelance jobs are opening up. Resumes I sent out months ago are beginning to pay off. A part of me even wonders if maybe I should take some time off from the 9 to 5 world to see, to do… to write.

And so “we hit the ground running” my friends.

(After vacation, of course.)

The parents came to town, so we brunched in the East Village.

Then Ivy, Clare, and I graduated at Radio City Music Hall with our Publishing cohort. I should have done at least one Rockette kick across the stage.