I don't live thea(r) anymore...

I’m finally done with Brandeis. Finished, verj, prtsa.

Leaving Waltham felt like a whirlwind. The few days prior to my departure were so busy that I hardly had time to sleep. Finishing up the finals, staying late at school to work on a project with my group on the last day, barely making it home to pack the rest of my stuff before heading to the airport Worrying that my luggage would exceed the weight limit, anticipating hold-ups at the checkpoint, flight cancellations and what not else... Sometimes I get antsy like that when big things happen and what was happening was big – I was finally leaving.

That last twenty minute walk from school to home felt like an eternity. I remembered what it was like to walk to school for the first time for orientation – hurried and excited. Amazed at how naïve I was then, how unknowing. I thought about how much I’d changed since then – how much these past few months changed me, for the better or worse. I tried to picture where I would be had I not come here. I thought about where I was going now - this time no longer afraid of uncertainties… After all, I was going to the only place I would rather be in the whole entire world. I was going home – to Richmond.

Mother Sugar took me to goodbye dinner to Cambridge. We strolled in Harvard Yard, talking about stuff – the past, the present, our future plans, her kids, my mother… promises to visit her from time to time, promises that she’d come to see me in Richmond. Meeting Mother Sugar and living in her house was perhaps the best thing that happened during these months of being here. As happy as I am to leave this one passage of my life behind, I know that even if I don’t miss much, I will truly miss this most understanding and loving and eccentric and passionate woman. And this is all I have to say before getting any sappier than I already am. And yet, I’m glad that there was something preventing me to simply wrap up my farewell with “So long, suckers, don’t bother to miss me” and that something was Mother Sugar.