It Felt Like School Outside

When I walked out of work after what felt like a 12 hour day (I, in actuality, had only been there for eleven hours and forty five minutes) the first thing that hit me was that it felt like School outside.

Playing SPUD in the driveway, or ghosts in the graveyard on the block.  Sitting out by the pool, the cover just put into place at the end of summer.  Putting off papers and classes to read the Death of a Salesman in my favorite spot on campus.

School has a season.  Even though the bulk of school happens in the winter and spring, 68 degrees signifies school.  A moderate breeze that gets you too cold if you sit in one spot too long, but bounces off of you if you are moving, or deep in thought.  The streetlights trademark hue soon to be reflected off of the leaves that add their own autumnal yellow and red to the Orange that is the season.  Those very same leaves which add the rustle which is the only soundtrack now that people have retreated inside until spring.

It hit me harder than i thought.  This is first true September I will have without back to school.  Last year I was unemployed and couch surfing, a time out of the linear progression we need to understand time.  There is a time to sow and a time to reap, a time to be in school and a time to work.

The confusing part is that school is tied to a cyclical pattern, and work is tied to an overarching series of years.  I was apparently not ready for this time to come while I am so heavily invested in work.  I want to be smoking outside of Gries, not stumbling home, hoping for a bed.

Work has become something I do without thinking about.  A vacation came and went, but I was not shocked that I had to go back to work, it happened without my overt acknowledgement.  Now, I am forced to acknowledge and attempt to file away what it means to need school and neighborhood friends while seeing my friends so sparingly and working.