Graduation

I'm going to try and write posts every week for the next couple of weeks. We'll see how well that goes. This post is for Saturday, May 6, 2017.

I graduated from college. I haven't fully internalized it yet. I woke up today and slightly freaked out thinking that I forgot to turn something in. I then remembered I literally was given a degree the day before and that I don't need to turn anything in anymore. It's hard to believe that five years have passed already. Every year brought new challenges and new experiences. Through both the good and the bad I made it.

My first year of college mainly involved me trying to figure out...everything. What "college" is, how do I make friends, how do I work in a college environment. I knew nothing. Every time somebody tells me about a somewhat shameful freshman year experience I always say it's OK because I think freshman year didn't really count. We were all figuring things out, we made a bunch of mistakes, and we got through it.

My second year of college was slightly more of the same. I started to figure out how to navigate "college". I then decided to not go to classes for two months. All of my classes for that semester didn't take attendance and any homework I could submit online so half way through the semester I only went to work and never went to any classes. Definitely my lowest point academically and one low point emotionally. Then for some reason during winter break I decided to do this.

Reading old blog posts is honestly pretty great. Here's one from a little over 4 years ago. Finished with my second year of school, looking forward to the summer, not looking forward to moving back home again. Oh and that scoliosis surgery. The more time that passes from my surgery the less I directly think about it. My back and the condition it's in is just part of my life.

My third year is when I think I really started to "grow" socially. I don't think I was getting any better at being social at this point. I guess I was just...less terrible at it? I lived on campus for the fall semester then I moved off campus and lived with my great uncle for the spring semester. I started to miss people. This was a completely new feeling because I didn't miss anybody while in high school and before that point in college I was around people I cared about almost constantly. I worked as a software engineer for the first time and I really enjoyed it. Things honestly were going pretty well.

My fourth year didn't bring any academic challenges that I couldn't handle. I actually made Dean's List spring semester. I know, right. I finally moved off campus into an apartment with my friends. The year did bring a whole bunch of emotional challenges though. Work was a mess, through no fault of my own. My relationships were a mess, all my fault. I can't reiterate enough that there was a two month period where I was at my lowest, ever. I'm honestly not sure how I made it.

And now here we are at my fifth year. At the beginning of my last fall semester things were like a 7 out of 10 on the "how would you rate the life your living right now" scale. I was happier but not fully satisfied. I felt like I was just going through the motions. I felt like I needed to explore and radically change my life. Somehow I got a job at Amazon. I was going to move to Seattle. Then spring semester happened. HackBeanpot happened. Graduation happened. And now here I am, a college graduate, writing a post at 5 AM, moving across the country in less than a month.

Between the celebrations I've been slowly working together a plan on moving. Like 6 hours ago I started looking at apartments in Seattle again. And then I started looking up stuff about Seattle again. And then I started to get worried and stressed about moving to Seattle again. When I start to get worried and stressed the first thing I want to do is to stop interacting with the thing that is causing those feelings. But I need to put a plan together. So I kept looking at things and my brain kept freaking out. Moving is starting to get real and I'm starting to question myself again.

There are a bunch of things I'm worried about. Can I successfully move myself to Seattle? Will I make any friends in Seattle? What about the Seattle Freeze? Will I die in some massive Seattle earthquake? War with North Korea? What the fuck Trump? Will I budget poorly? What happens if I don't like it there? Can I last 2 years at Amazon? How much will I miss people in Boston? Will it be worth it?

I haven't even started thinking about working at Amazon. I literally only graduated less than 48 hours ago and I'm already starting to freak out. I've told myself that I'll try to become a person again on Monday but honestly I'm probably going to just watch Netflix for 8 hours straight because I can now.

But yeah, I have had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of amazing, wonderful, awesome, inspiring, incredible fucking people over the last 5 years. My close friends are some of the best people I know. I am super fucking glad to have met everyone on the HackBeanpot 2017 Core team. I love Boston. AND NOW I'M CHOOSING TO LEAVING THEM ALL.

We'll see if I can write more coherent thoughts in a week.