Hello, I'm Leaving!
Look, look, he's saying his first words!
Two weeks ago today, on Wednesday, October 9, 2024, I decided to take a Leave of Absence from my college, and by the end of the very next day, the leave had officially been filed. I checked today, and according to some of the transcripts and various records, I am on leave, yet some say that I’m still an active student, and all guidance I received leading up to my declaration said that it could take until November. Soooooo…yay college bureaucracy. Yay academia. Hip hip hur-fucking-ray.
This semester was supposed to be the first half of my senior year: the culmination of three years of undergraduate courses, four declarations and redeclarations of my major, and an amount of money that no one ever wishes to disclose. What was the feeling going into it? Fuck me. I’m not ready for all of this. I’m not ready to graduate. I’m not ready for this to end, mostly because I can’t even say if it’s even started. THIS is my Twenties?!?!?
I’ve never been certain about my own present. I’ve panicked about the past—overthinking every fuck-up in an achievementless attempt to psychoanalyze myself, Freudian pipes and all. I’ve envisioned the future through the lens of my several Oscar acceptance speeches, but I’ve never really figured out how to use Final Draft. Hell, I don’t even have it installed!
It’s an obvious fact, yet an eternally terrifying one: working on yourself is hard. I have no guilt over the decision to take a Leave of Absence (perhaps guilt over taking one so late, but let’s be kind to ourselves here), but the truth is that it is growing increasingly difficult day by day to make it mean something. To make my life mean something.
So…that’s what brings me here. A twenty-something in two thousand and twenty something, looking for meaning. I don’t expect to find it here, but I hope to. And…perhaps that’s what we all need to look for.
(Note: It’s highly unlikely that the style of this piece will appear in the future works in this Substack, but the writing, like me, is a work in progress. I chose to have this shorter, less formal introduction because I’m borrowing greatly from my friend Bailey Carr started her own Substack, The Archivist. Check her out!)