A Day of Days

Right now, it is August 22, 2013. This day – today – is a day of days.

As I write this, I’m in the midst of a fairly significant life transition. Today I will truly begin the process of moving out of my apartment with my college/fraternity roommate, Bullets, and moving into a new one with my girlfriend, Anna. A paradigm shift, for sure.

I’ve previously alluded to my distaste for the “fork in the road” metaphor for life. It’s too simplistic; it makes sense on a micro-level, as a metaphor for a single decision, but as a whole, it trivializes the infinite decisions that came before. It’s hard not to think about this concept, though, on this day of days, as today represents such a big milestone in this life I lead. Yet I still think it’s a bit off. Where I sit today is instead the result of those countless choices, and myriad other factors, leading me here, where I’m now crossing the border.

I’m sad to leave where I was and happy to be headed where I’m going. I find that interesting. One doesn’t usually find oneself in that position. It’s as if I’m in the midst of a road trip, and right now I’m headed from one destination to the other. When I studied abroad, I took a Eurail around – well, you can probably guess where – for 24 straight days, and this present day reminds me of that. Just because I was sad to leave Berlin – home to the craziest time of my life – doesn’t mean I wasn’t giddy about going to Amsterdam.

Anna and I are both making huge changes in our lives, sharing an apartment in Woodley Park, DC. It’s a move about which I could not be more excited. We’re going to build our first home there. We’re going to cook, and drink wine, and have double dates and go to brunch around the corner. We’ll go running, or so we’ve told ourselves like 395 times. I’ll yell “Honey, I’m home!” obnoxiously loud as I walk in the door, because who doesn’t sometimes enjoy doing obnoxious things for that sole purpose. We’ll run errands after we get home from work. We’ll set an actual budget; it sounds nerdy to get excited about, but growing up can be bangarang sometimes. There are going to be flowers everywhere, including our comforter (okay, so that change is only for me).

These are all things I love, flowers excluded, yet it still represents a big change for the both of us. Let’s be honest, though – this is my Blogcat, so we’re going to focus on the kid. My lifestyle with Bullets was wildly different than what mine will be moving forward. No more Space Jam posters, nor weekend bottle-splits. No more <The Remainder of this Section Has Been Redacted Due to Explicit Content>. I’m excited to move on ahead, but nostalgic about leaving it all behind.

I don’t really feel the need to dwell on any more purely personal content. This isn’t a diary. I just wanted to note how infrequent it is to recognize and reflect upon these transition periods as they occur. Small transitions happen all the time and we never notice. Big ones, like driving from your home town to your Freshman year of college, make you pause and think. That’s the cool part; I know I’m in limbo.

All of us, we’re all constantly straddling the equator, with a foot on either side. We just so rarely know where we are that the moments when we do truly stand out.