I turn 25 on Friday. I have previously poked fun at people for having trouble with their 25th birthday. However I find myself feeling unexpectedly upset as a quarter century stares me in the face. Maybe it's the long list of people I know who died this past year, let's see...
1. Uncle George
2. Mel
3. Stephanie
4. Joshua
5. Marcus
There were more too, but now I can't remember, either way, too much for 24. Each one fills me with a different sort of sadness. Depending on the relationship I had with them, how long since I had seen them last or heard from them, if they were a part of my genetic or chosen family.
My friendship with Joshua can be described as tumultuous, and even that is sort of a generous description. But hearing that now he's gone, though it doesn't surprise me, fills me with sadness, sadness, sadness. Sadness for him, for the paths that he traveled in his life, all dimly lit and gritty. Sadness that sometimes there are no second chances, that sometimes your whole life comes down to the worst choice you ever made. The fact that the dumbest decision ever made by your young mind has come to rule your life, dictate all your directions; that everything since was set into motion when you shrugged and said "why not?" to the peer pressure and let that lipsticked brunette shoot you up between the toes. I cringe at the thought.
Sadness for myself. That his too thin frame will never again darken my doorway by surprise on an autumn night, that his voice will never talk to me after the tone calling me beautiful before begging me for rides or money. Sadness that he is not waiting for me to run into him on often ridden afternoon bus lines. Sadness at memories of laughing in a St. Paul snow storm outside Carbone's or sneaking into movies all day at the Oakdale theater.
Sadness that memories and signed books and lurking reminders are all that remain. No one is all bad or all good. He was a crash course in the truth of that statement.
And that's just one of the people permanently removed from my life.
I stand on the cusp of other massive, mind-consuming life changes as well. Let's see I got married less than a year ago. And I graduated college a couple weeks ago, 2 degrees and 8 years of nose to the grindstone later. In a few months I will be starting my first new job in over five years. It will also be my first nursing job, the first job of a lifelong career.
And that job is in Southern California- half a continent away. In a state I have visited once before. Very far from the cold winters, humid summers and familiar streets and sights of Minnesota, the only state in which I've ever lived. Every time I drive down these streets now, every time I make that drive to my parents house, every time I see a familiar face at the coffee shop, every time we get pitchers at Tracks, every day I trek down University Avenue or frequent the fine business establishments of the Midway. Every time I am reminded that I won't be here much longer, no more Minneapolis skyline for me, no more familiarity in any form, except for the face of my husband. And my own self in the mirror. Which is rapidly becoming less familiar.
Of course though, so much of this is at least partially dependent on the NCLEX nursing boards. Ugh. That huge test, that last large looming question mark on the road to being a Registered Nurse. I better go study. Did you know that after a percutaneous liver biopsy you position the client in a right side lying position with a small pillow or rolled blanket under their right side? Yeah, that's what I learned. That and everything else that could possibly cross the minds of the sick freaks who run the NCSBN.
See you in California.
