Graduation.

Oh 2009. How often I think about that year. It was the year I was the funnest. It was the year I was the skinniest. It was the year with the best top 40 music (I get it in till the sun rise, goin’ 90 in a 65…). It was also the year I drank the most, studied the hardest, made the best friends, stayed up the latest and loved life to the absolute fullest. As we frequently say, “those were the glory days.”

Now my little baby brother is about to graduate from my fabulous alma mater, and all I can think about is that I hope he’s cherishing and loving these moments as much as I was. In fact, I just texted him and told him that he better be spending these last few glorious days drinking outside at Café and making poor life choices on the dfloor at Indigo. Hopefully he’ll still be in the mood to do Soco and Lime shots with me on Saturday night.

But all I can really think about is how much times have changed. Especially this year. 2012 has been a hard year for me. Harder than 2011…and I thought that was a hard year. I’m sad and lonely and missing my friends and family and hometown. Sometimes I’m so bitterly homesick that it makes me just so angry about everything in this town. Which is a total shame because DC has so many wonderful things to offer. And so does my job. But I’m getting older, and what I want in life has changed so much since those beautiful spring days in 2009. I want to cuddle up on the couch of a house in the suburbs with M and watch movies and make homemade dinners together. I want us to wake up early to walk the dog and run next to each other on side-by-side treadmills at the gym after work. I want us to have dinners with his parents and sit at church on Sunday mornings with mine. And it all seems so unachievable.

I know that people just a few years older than me will tell me to be patient. That there will come a time for all of this suburban-ness, and that I should just embrace the ease of my metro-accessible neighborhood and tiny little apartment. I should love the luxury of living on my own and the freedom to choose the television programming. And I do enjoy these things, but I just can’t stop myself from wanting to speed through this phase of my life and park firmly in the next.

 I know I usually try to end my entries with some positive motivation—calling myself to try harder and pray stronger and wake up earlier and love more fiercely. But tonight I just don’t have the energy. So I’m just hoping for patience and peace until this season is over and lovingly looking forward to the next.

To patience and peace,

Lia