Goodbye college. Hello huge void.

 Soundtrack for May 10th entry – "Where the story ends" by The Fray 
"Trying not to lose your own, boxing up everything you’ve got. All you ever knew of home, you’re scared, scared to see your mother there in the door. you wonder where did the years go. All we know is distance, we’re close and then we run. Kiss away the difference." 
Or possibly, "I Must Belong Somewhere" by Bright Eyes
(either are perfect) 

I am packing. i am packing up the last four years of my life. 
i know i will not miss this place. 
i will miss our nights. the laughter that ensued. the crazy stories. the love that formed here. mornings of waking up to acoustic guitar sounds. and star gazing on the golf course. 
it was time before responsibility. 
where i went to europe. australia. colorado. california. 
the adventures had these past four years are the only things that shall remain. 

the confrontations at stadium house, the nights lying on his floor, or mine, watching Eternal Sunshine, writing a note and preparing to take a long drive to nowhere. 
they all exist in the past. a host of memories i’m erasing as i finish packing up everything and graduate tomorrow. 

but then. 
i think about questions asked while i was perched on kitchen counters. 
kitchen counter encounters. hummingbird hearts and hummingbirds seen through window panes.  
like-hearts and like-minds are creating something unexpected. 
when you asked me today, "do you wish you never met me?" i was tempted just cry and say "yes." 
i wish the incredible amounts of passion and perfection were not keeping my feet firmly where they have stopped now. my heart aches to run. to adventure and to see the world i love so. 
it’s the only way to find yourself and be continually happy. jack kerouac would agree. (you can hate him for watering that seedling idea, for giving it sunlight and nurturing it until it grew into this need, this obsession.) 
i am my own version of Sal Paradise. minus the drugs, of course. 

i’ve been having dreams about the sierra nevada mountains. their warm days and cold nights. dreaming of watching the sunrise over huntington lake from high above it, every morning at 5:30am.
your life is not too small. you are absolutely unbelievable. you are unexplainable. you are mine. and i’m ready for those talks. for the idea of kitchen aid mixers and furniture. 
i just need to feel like i’m not sinking. falling into the ohio i never wanted to stay in for more than these past four years. 
i’m terrified. 
but my heart cannot be too far from the one thing that is keeping it pumping these days. 
i needed adventure before i met you. i needed to assuage the stabbing pain in my chest from the home and love that was lacking. 
i found in the my campers, as i sang them to sleep nightly. in the powder snow of Big Sky, Montana as I learned to shred down the mountain. in the streets of paris. in coffee shops in austria. in the van gogh museum in amsterdam. under a beautiful italian sky outside of florence. in the water of colorado hot springs. on the streets of Greenwich Village, in New York City.  
I needed those homes. i needed the people there. 
but now i have your heart. your kiss. your eyes. your voice. your stomach against my back at night. 
i never wanted anything more. and i have it all now. 
and a loving family. where i feel safe, at home and at ease. 

this whole graduating tomorrow business has put my head through the spin cycle. 
bad memories resurfacing. dull pains in old wounds. 
the huge void that is ahead is consuming me. 

you are the only thing keeping my feet firmly on the ground. after the earth’s spin, the revolutions, the hours passing and years continuing to end. 
you are there. holding my hand. 
you are quickly becoming my raison d’etre. 

and that makes me gasp for air.