In the last chapter of the first volume
Today was my cousin’s baby’s birthday so my mom and dad and I trucked it to Rossville to spend some time at the party. Any loyal follower knows one thing about me… I love my family especially in all of its extended wonderfulness. I love it which means that I’m pretty damn excited to get to spend some time with them. It’s also awesome now that there’s little kids around. I think the last three holidays I haven’t put little Nate down. And today, I was bummed that he’s walk/scooting around so he gets fussy when he’s held for too long. But he’s at a cute age where he likes to play with trucks and other badass toys for little boys that my cousin uses to force hegemonic masculinity on him and his brother 🙂 right. So there’s all kinds of cute stories I could relay… like the “ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha” faked laughs of a one year old on his birthday, or how he clapped for every gift that he liked and how he clapped through the cake eating after stuffing his mouth with a huge piece of cake, it was simply adorable… but this is more about a realization that I had about this being basically the last random holiday that i’ll be around for.
It’s weird and sort of sad that next year I might not even make it home for Thanksgiving and certainly not for a second birthday. It’s strange to watch all of these chapters in my life come slowly to a close and me left completely unsure of what the next chapter will hold.. or even what the setting is. This is like a choose-your-own-adventure book where the control I have over the plot only seems to be of my choosing. Really, I’m antsy because i want to know where I’ll get into grad school, where I’ll get money, and where Kyle and I will end up in a year. So frustrating not to know. I’m going to be the weird academic in my family who moved away, the one who waited to start a family, the one with a doctorate. i’ve always been fairly different from these people but i mean, you can tell that they’re just a little weirded out by what i plan to do. ahh. it’s strange. I’m excited to go wherever my plans take me this time though. Unlike this same process in high school, I’m so happy that my life is going to go somewhere awesome. I’m excited for the next step. And I’m not even paralyzingly afraid of change.