Ghosts That Broke My Heart

Today I have no need of a winter coat and even though I know better than to trust that this bubble of good, warm, spring-like weather will last, for now I'm perfectly content to stretch out my arms in the sunshine. The past two days have been opposite and the same. Yesterday was cold, rainy, and I felt miserable and read microfilm in Richmond. Today is warm, sunny, I feel happy, and I spent the morning/early afternoon on campus getting some things in order for my thesis and applications. But both days have been characterized by thinking about the past, though yesterday I felt upset by it and today I can reflect more clearly.

Here it is: the only thing I know for certain is that next year I most likely will not be in Williamsburg. I've thought this two times before-- once at the end of senior year and again at this time last year, but I really will be going now. And not only will I be going, but probably I will not even be in Virginia anymore. And once upon a time that thought made me so happy, but now... Williamsburg, I've realized, is my home. It's where I feel happiest. It's where I want to be. I am sad to leave it and excited to return. I've been searching for a home for years and suddenly I realize I have been here all along, and now I'm going to leave. How do you leave your home?

I chose here. I chose this place long, long ago, when I was still a little girl, only eight years old. This is all I wanted. I felt that I had a future here, and I did. I've become who I am here. But then I think, Williamsburg is full of ghosts. I realized it today on campus, walking past people who looked vaguely like friends I remember from four, five, six years ago. Seeing buildings that I lived in, or places that I remember having class, or picnicking, or flirting, or reading, or rehearsing. Places I have cried, places I have been full of laughter. I have a good memory, but a nostalgic one. With so little else building over these shades, it feels as if I'm thrown into the past every time I step on campus. All these ghosts might someday suffocate me.

Perhaps, now, my future lies elsewhere and there are other places that can become home, too. Places that I have yet to explore, people I have yet to meet, challenges yet to face. I've never much liked change-- I still feel sad watching Little Women when at the end they are all grown-up and those wonderful times they had as children are lost-- but it has to happen. Change sometimes has bad things, but without change so many wonderful things wouldn't occur, either.

So, I can feel sad and apprehensive about all of the changes coming up in the next few months, or I can think of myself as an adventurer on a quest to find my treasure.