Over the course of the past three and a half years, I spent roughly 8,000 minutes in a classroom. I listened to lectures, took notes, wrote papers, crammed for tests, over-flooded my already busy schedule with internships and part-time jobs, and checked all the boxes that would land me a degree. Then, in about five minutes, I walked across a stage, shook hands with a man that I hadn’t really seen since Freshman orientation, and smiled for a picture with a piece of paper in my hands that marked the end of my time as a college student.
Although I intentionally finished my degree a semester early, its end still came as a shock. All of a sudden all the questions about what I wanted to be when I grew up and what I would do after college came to a screeching halt. Like magic, I found myself employed and talking about my plans to move back to Paris, nodding and smiling like some knowing adult who had always had the right answers to these questions, though I had only come up with my sketchy post-graduation plan a few weeks prior to receiving my diploma. In a lot of ways, I feel like adulthood snuck up on me the way puberty sneaks up on preteens.
Even though an older man in a robe handed me a nicely bound piece of paper that somehow made my adulthood official, I often feel like a faker. I still awkwardly look around while a waiter or cashier checks my I.D. for too long when I order alcohol, as though I’m waiting for them to ask if I’m actually 21 years old (I am). I feel surprised when someone asks me what I do for work, a little shocked that they didn’t automatically assume I’m still a student. I still catch myself somewhat surprised when other, much older adults don’t seem so much like parents to me anymore, and I still get a little worried about being old enough to rent a car or a hotel room without a parent…
But the thing is, I think that’s all pretty normal. I may be a little new to true adulthood, but I think there’s a lot of beauty in the transition.
The first hour I spent in the car driving away from Nashville, headed back to my childhood home not knowing, for the first time, when I’d go back to my college home again, I cried. Brandi Carlisle and I serenaded a town full of people that couldn’t hear us at the top of our lungs, letting everyone know that wherever their hearts are we’ll call home, and Regina Spektor told me that I’ll come back when they call me, until there was enough distance between my dear college friends and my little gold car that it would just have been pitiful if I had carried on any longer.
The heavy feeling I felt as I left Nashville was a reminder that my transition into adulthood didn’t happen overnight. The heavy sadness and nostalgia that comes with leaving behind the full afternoons spent riding a bike that was too small, the ability to drive five minutes to be with my best friends, the house full of roommates who quickly became my favorite companions and all of the familiar surroundings of my college town was not lost on me. Although I’m excited about the move back to Paris scheduled for the end of this week and the many wonderful things that are now unfolding, I recognize that I am still coming to terms with the close of a very precious chapter of my life.
Though I never planned for what leaving home with a one-way ticket back to Paris would look like, it feels like these plans have been making themselves for a very long time without my even realizing it was happening. While it is not easy to turn my life upside down, I have found that it has become one of my favorite pastimes. Each period of change forces me to get to know myself again, hence my decision to go leaping off into the deep end again.
Going back to Paris this year holds the promise of learning how to get by as a struggling, working adult, no longer an American student studying abroad. I don’t think I’ll completely drop the title “student,” but I know my role has shifted. I’m happy to leave behind the version of myself that was stressed about school, turning in busy work and cramming for tests, but sad to leave behind a time in my life that allowed me to experience the freedom of living away from home without much responsibility. As I inch myself underneath the full weight of independence, I admit I’m nervous about what fuller self-dependence looks like. The reality of figuring out my personal finances, planning for my future, and navigating French governmental processes is not all that fun or easy, but learning how to be a student of my world and my work is the most exciting adventure I’ve ever begun. Without rushing ahead or dwelling on what’s left behind, I’m just here. And here feels really good.
The Transition Artist 