The End

This is not The End.
This is a post about The End.
The specific End I am referring to is set to occur at a point either 5 or 16 weeks in the future, depending on how I am choosing to count it, moment to moment.

I am a student at UC Santa Cruz currently enrolled in my 11th quarter, 181st unit and final requirement for my BA* in Psychology. I will graduate in 5 short weeks. The End.

That makes sense, right? Except, apart from the fact that I will be -A College Graduate- nothing is going to change. I am going to stay right here, in my darling apartment with my lovely friends, I am going to continue collecting my allowance, playing Settlers of Catan, and working my college job as cashier at The Store. I am going to pretend that I am staying in school and graduating with all of my friends. I am putting off life for 10 more weeks, and I think that it is perfectly logical and fair.

Thus, it could also be argued that The End will be 16 weeks from now. You see?

The closer it gets, the more I like that second number.

I have a voice in my head, a voice that sounds a lot like my extra-literal mother, saying "It's not the End! Why would you say it's the End? That sounds so depressing! Fatalistic! Morbid!" Of course it's not actually The End, say, of time, or of my life or of humanity, but honestly, at this moment, when I try to imagine the future? My imagination putts along nicely for 16 weeks and then it falls off a cliff.

What do I know about my future right now? First and foremost, I know, completely and securely, that everything will be ok. I have a college degree. (I know I don't, technically, yet, but it's reached the point in the quarter where I feel like even if I stopped going to class entirely and didn't turn in another single thing, they'd probably still give me a C. There's basically no way to screw it up now.) I don't have any debt. I don't have any physical deformities and I'm pretty good with people when I have to be. I have a resume full of job experience and some solid references.

I am going to be fine.

If I didn't have a little bit of a pit in the bottom of my stomach whenever I thought about the future, would I have felt the need to make that list? Probably not. Anway. Moving on.

I know where I am going to be. I'm moving to Corvallis, OR. 11 hour s from Santa Cruz, due North. I've even been there a few times. I don't really know it yet, though. I can remember the way I saw Santa Cruz when I first moved here. It made no sense. No order, no center. That's how Corvallis feels now.

I know some of the major characters. My birthmother and her husband. My brother and sister. I know them. I've met them. I don't know what it's going to be like to be their family, though. To really get to know them in the way that can only be achieved by being around them for a long, long time. I've met a few other people too, on my visits. People I may get to know better, or may not see again.

That's pretty much all I've got. A little bit of the where. A little bit of the who. A lot of opportunity and empty space.

But like I said, it's going to be ok. The End is coming, but it's not the end. When the time comes I'll pack up my stuff and my cat and see what happens in the epilogue.

Because at this point? I have no idea.