Today is both a beginning and an ending. I started today by waking up and cleaning the last bit of the apartment I've lived in for the past three years. I loaded half my life into my car, turned my keys in, and drove home to the middle of California.
But what is home? Five days ago, I was sitting in the pit of UC Berkeley's William Randolph Hearst Greek Theater next to my roommate of four years, best friend, and basically a sister, waiting to cross a stage and get a commemorative scroll. Five days ago, Cal was my home.
Fast forward about 120 hours and you'll find one (sort of?) confused, freshly minted college graduate with two diplomas, a lot of self-doubt, a little bit of fear, and a vague sketch of what she hopes her life will look like, but no real idea how the cards will fall.
I've spent the last four years composing over one hundred papers in two languages just to receive another two pieces of paper in the mail in September that somehow verify that I'm an educated citizen of the world, but I feel as if my education has hardly begun, especially since I can't seem to figure out what "home" means at the moment. I feel like I know so little, and if there's one thing Cal will cultivate in any student, it's the intense curiosity to know, know, know. If one happens not to know, then Cal gives you the humility to admit that lack of knowledge, to figure out what you don't know, and why you don't know it. Or perhaps to admit that what you seek is something you may never know, can never know.
So I admit with all frankness that I do not know where home is right now, that I do not yet know what being in the real world means, that I am as young and inchoate as ever.
Moreover, I can say that my name is Lindsay, that I'm 22 years old, and this is the space where for one year, I'll be trying to make sense of what I do know, and what I don't know, and that's really all there is to it. This is my adventure: post grad, new life, new country, and a year I hope will be filled with plenty of friendship, love, and laughter.
I hope you'll join me.
