When It's Over

When it's over,
That's the time I fall in love again.
And when it's over,
That's the time you're in my heart again.
And when you go go go go,
I know
And it never ends
It never ends.
All the things that I used to say,
All the words that got in the way,
All the things that I used to know,
Have gone out the window.
All the things that she used to bring,
All the songs she used to sing.
All the favorite TV shows,
Have gone out the window.

~Sugar Ray.

Here is a stream of conscience babble. I hope to by next week have grabbed my tail and be back on the strait and narrow path of my normal blog routine. We shall see. Although maybe people do not want the normal blog, since it usually involved drawn-out diatribes and large lexicon.

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This week is the end. As in, the end of my time at the university I have gone to since 2006. That was nine years ago (if for some reason you were unable to do the math). Quite a bit has happened in those nine years. I have gone from high school graduate to graduate degree. In some senses it means nothing. All of this was just expected. The overall plan is not complete. I am barely over half way perhaps. In some ways, I feel as if I was just running on a treadmill--running to stand still.

But in terms of the details, much has transpired. I have had a bajillion roommates. I lived during Jimmermania. I changed my major three times. Homework was done, grades were earned, a thesis was written. I even earned some degrees I did not originally plan on obtaining. And I married the most beautiful woman in the world. Okay, that last one is not true. Truth be told, one can actually complete a master's degree at this university and not be married. I darn near made it without even talking to a girl. That's the glory of being in two majors that have almost no women. Sure, a few cute redheads threw themselves at me. And yes, once or twice I got a girl to actually remember my name was not Russell. But really the only contact I had with females was when I taught a school course. And dating your students is against the Honor Code. Or maybe the Morse Code. Something like that.

Another thing I was just realizing is that, for the first time in almost a decade, I can go an entire week without shaving and I will not be in trouble with the Boo-Boo police. Although, full disclosure, I have gone an entire week before and not shaved. This was usually at a time when I could sequester myself away in a far away country like Wyoming. And I have also been busted by a vigilante for having a beard on campus after I finished an undergraduate degree and had not started school again. However, I'm sure that there still will be people who keep me in line at my new school.

Enough said.

Furthermore, with this being "The End" and all, I had to move apartments. I have spent the last four years in the same apartment. I have had 10 roommates there over the course of these four years. To my count, four of my former roommates at this place have gone on to get married. Six of them have not. This can be calculated by what we call "process of elimination."

Now fours years seems like nothing in terms of time spent living in the same place. My grandparents lived in the same house since the 1950s I think. But four years of living in the same two bedroom (shared) apartment is a rather long time. Suffice it to say that I had a lot of digging to do. If you see my bedroom at home you might not believe this, but I threw out probably 150 pounds of  "stuff" from my apartment. And I'm not talking couches or something--I'm talking bent silverware, dozens of Amazon boxes, and roughly a 200-year supply of cumin. We also had a large stockpile of potato flakes and soup ladles. Good thing my associate was there to help. If those potatoes had reconstituted I might have been engulfed. Throw in the 8 pounds of cumin and they might have never found me. As for the ladles, all I can say is that it is better to be up late with the ladles and ladies than it is to have no ladle at all. And we sure had a lot of ladles. But only one lady.

There is not really much more to say here. The last two weeks have been such a whirlwind that I never even had time to think about the fact that the life I used to live was sort of over. This is true in more way than one. Honestly I try not to even think about it. It sounds sappy, but I have almost experienced a paradigm shift. The only way to describe it is to picture boarding a sea-liner and going down to the lower decks for years, then finally emerging. You finally come up on deck and ask "What does it even mean?" I feel as if several worlds are now being forced to meld together.

This is getting too philosophical, so I am just going to end here. But for the record, my apartment number is now #7 instead of #6. #WishMeLuck.