When It's Time to Move On
When I graduated high school, I was the only person in my class going to my college; I wasn’t going to know anyone or be starting my freshman year with any high school peers. Honestly, I was perfectly all right with that.
Starting over in a new city with no friends while also dealing with the newness of college wasn’t itself ever easy, but I wanted it, and I knew that it was important that I learn those lessons. Now, I’ve lived here for almost six years, and it’s almost hard to remember the time it didn’t feel like home. I stayed right where I was after I graduated, not just because I wanted to, but where else would I go?
I had no expectations for what post-college was like, and I didn’t know what direction I wanted to take (and still don’t). I had built a life for myself that I wasn’t inclined to let go of just yet. At the time, every “option” I thought of didn’t seem right. Move back home? My parents had just moved to a place I’d never been, that wasn’t quit home. Go on to graduate school? I’d had my fill of academia for a least a year or so; at that point if I’d looked at one more Word document I would have lost it. Find a “real” job? Enticing, but near impossible to find and frustrating. Here I am a year or so later, and I think I know I need something new. I know I’m completely capable of starting over somewhere new this time around, but I had to let myself reach that point of “ok, it’s time for a few major changes.”
Don’t get me wrong, wanting to move on to something new doesn’t have to have a negative connotation. I’m not so miserable in my day-to-day life that I’m dramatically shouting from the rooftops, “Get me out of here!” (although I still imagine myself doing it sometimes). I am comfortable, which could be the root of the problem. I love my apartment, almost all of my friends are still a five-minute drive away, I have my favorite places to eat and secret spots I go to write. I made myself a home, but it’s not my forever home. That seems like a sad sentence, but to me it’s not. I know I’ll always have a home here, just like I’ll always have a home with my parents. But I have too many unfulfilled parts of myself to keep staying in one place, and it’s perfectly all right to think that you’ll never feel totally settled down anywhere.
[Photo by Juliette Kibodeaux.]
A Memphis native, Anna graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with degrees in English and Spanish in December 2014. She thrives on caffeine, tacos, and existential crises. When not slinging pizza and beer at work, she enjoys long daydreams about that time she was in London, and that other time she lived in Belize. Basically, travel is key to happiness.