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the last of days




What do people who don't have a perfect nostalgic 50's diner that serves the world's most perfect onion rings and milkshakes that no doubt are imported from the land of milk and honey, wherever that is? How do they survive without the perfect visual metaphor for your idyllic adolescence, hundred of visits there after shows where you poured into the show everything your high school drama club member self could, on hot summer days where there seems like nothing else to do and you haven't seen your friends in ages, on pouring days where you dispense every ounce of wisdom you have to the tiny little baby freshman three years younger than you, after a long night out when the only thing you want to do more than sleep is have a god damn cherry limeade?

How on earth do you do it? How am I gonna do it?

I don't want this to be long, but it is 11:59 on Wednesday August 15th and tomorrow I am moving 500 miles away from home and all my friends and family and live with strangers in the third biggest city in the U.S.

Oh, the clock just changed. 

it is 12:00 on Thursday August 16th and today I am moving 500 miles away from home and all my friends and family and live with strangers in the third biggest city in the U.S.

I am terrified and excited and nervous and ecstatic and anxious and ready and dreading and hoping, hoping most of all I think. 

And I just wanna say that I knew my days were numbered but holy hell that went quick. And I just wanna say that senior year you plan a lot of lasts but no one really tells you that some of your lasts go by without you even noticing. I guess I thought I had more time. I didn't realize it was my last day at loose, or the last time I'd see Maddie, or the last time I'd see the neighbor kids playing across the street. I didn't know it was my last time getting Waldo pizza, or seeing Andrea. I didn't know it was my last fourth day, or the last time I'd ride my own bike, or First Fridays and I didn't realize it was the last time I'd have coffee with her.

But then on the night before you leave you drive down Ward Parkway for the last time and your windows are down and The Head and The Heart are maxing out your speakers and your hair is flying behind you and you feel the heat, and the humidity but somewhere in there is just the hint of the first bite of cold that tells you fall is coming. And driving down that street that raised you for the last time feels entirely different and somehow exactly the same as you'd imagined it. 

And I sit here and write this as I lay in my childhood bed for the last time before I leave and what I feel most of all is hope. I loved where I've been and I love where I'm going. And I can't wait to tell you all about it.


















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