THIS IS IT

  This is the one phrase that has just stuck in my mind in the immediate aftermath of my post-grad. As a question, as a goodbye, as an assertion, y'know. For months on end, I had anticipated and tried to predict what my life would be like after college. I wondered what my goodbyes would look like, where I would live, and what my life would be like.

  On April 1, 2025, I got acceptance into my grad school at the University of Washington in Seattle. I thought it was funny that it was on April Fools' Day. I remember opening up the portal and seeing the confetti; it was super anti-climactic. I didn't know how to celebrate because I didn't think I'd get this far. But, I think in that moment, things became a little clearer. For sure, my girlfriend and I would break up. For sure, I would have to find someone to live in my apartment for the last two months of the lease. And of course, for sure, I would end up in Seattle, that was so exciting to me.

  I spent the next month trying to think about what these things would actually end up being like. What would it be like when my girlfriend and I break up? What will it be like when I say goodbye to my roommates of four years and drive to the West Coast? What will it be like when I get there? I think I was trying really hard to get a grasp on something that just felt so undefined to me. And what I mean by undefined is that I couldn't possibly begin to imagine what it would be like or how things would go.

  When my girlfriend and I broke up, it was sort of a surprise. We talked about it before, but the moment and actual break-up itself was a surprise. I had only ever theorized about what it would be like. I remember the day after we broke up. I kept thinking, "so this is what it's like to feel single again," and "I guess that's how she broke up with me." No longer was it some undefined abstract idea, it was my living, breathing reality. "This is it for us," I thought.

  Two weeks later, I remember the morning I left for the West Coast. Two of my roommates had helped me move stuff into my car, and we were lingering in the garage. I looked at them and gave them both a hug. "This is it," I told them. This was goodbye. This was the end of our time living together. Something I could only picture in my mind is now very real and clearly defined. This is how it went.

  I stayed in Denver for a few weeks. It genuinely felt like I was rotting away. Like the person I spent four years being was now on hospice in the room of someone who I had been for the first 18 years of my life. I hated having to wait to start my "new life" in Seattle. At 21 I'd lived an entire life in Colorado, and an entire life in Alabama. I was so eager to start my new life in Seattle.

  The weeks before I moved were a blur. I'd gotten whiplash from the breakup and graduation and the move. And then it was time to drive to Seattle. I had only ever been to Seattle once when I was a child. It felt like gambling my future. Here I was, taking a whole lot of money out to uproot my life and find a job. None of it felt real. The first few months of living in Seattle felt like a punch to the face. Suddenly, I was swamped with so many adult responsibilities. Taking care of myself had never felt so hard. I had no friends, I was broke and single, and it felt like I was truly at rock bottom. I thought to myself, "I wanted to be here, this is what I wanted. This is it."

  Despite how gorgeous Seattle summers are, the longer I spent on my ass, I wondered, "Is this it?" When you don't have friends and you stay inside all the time, of course, things are going to suck. I felt so alone because my friends in the South were having a nice summer, and I was stuck on the West Coast trying to fend for my life. I exaggerate, of course. But that's sort of how it felt. There was such an urgency/exigence to plant my feet in Seattle and become independent.

  I struggled a whole lot. Slowly, but surely though, I started to make a couple more friends, started to go on some (bad) dates, and got to experience some trash job interviews. I'd actually juggled two new long distance girls concurrently and had a brat summer, two years late. I also saw a lot of great live music. Things will get better, I believed.

  There wasn't a single soul in all of Seattle who could tell you who I was. I walked the streets and I was whoever I wanted to be. I could be a womanizer, or a good samaritan, or a vagrant, who knows. No one knew a thing about me, and it was up to me to put to pages the kind of person I was. For the first time in my life, I felt I could be anyone I wanted to be, and the thought that one day I would walk through these crowds and someone would recognize me for who I was about to be excited me. This will be my new life. This is it.