Chapter Close - Cya Cola

I'm not always like this... 

My empty closet.

I am officially no longer a resident at Riverside, once known as Riverside Estates, once ridden with worn carpets and white walls, decorated with nylon-fitted furniture that Martha Stewart would have covered within half a breath and one falsified check.  I can't even remember what it looked like then, with the TV stand the complex provided below my ten-ton 1990-something television (which was a real bitch to carry down to the car), the red couch, the strange stains, the empty corners... I have strategically packed, unpacked, repacked, overpacked, underpacked, and finally perfected the two boxes, plastic drawers, two suitcases, desk drawers that I'm lugging out the KY and the box of memories, bag of goodwill-bound, and plastic container of textbooks I couldn't sell back into the shiny Aveira, my sole companion on this grand adventure.  Just like mom and pop taught me, I used every square inch of her. She awaits downstairs while I procrastinate departure.

I am sitting here watching my roommate of four years, best friend of at least twice that, sweep the wood-looking linoleum and scrub the empty counters, perusing the bare cabinets.  I've already packed up all of my worldly possessions to be abandoned in the armpit of SC, tucked away in the condo where a friend is letting me crash this fall while he fights bad guys across the Atlantic.  My key is turned in, my rent paid up through July, and the bright blue plastic of my mattress is reflecting in the broken closet door Riverside doesn't seem to care I tore down for a bit of college-age fun.  It's dauntingly quiet in here, which I'm sure will be rectified in the next twenty minutes, with three marines barreling through the door, hungry for BBQ, and probably 100% vacant of the fact that today is my get-gone Wednesday.

Sitting on the mattress of my empty room where I lived for two years of my college career.

The blinds covering the window that was my link to hear every pin drop that occurred in the stair well of our apartment complex.

The backseat of my car. Absolutely NO room for passengers.

I'm learning the same thing I learned after high school graduation - I truly suck at good-byes.  Among the mile-high cornucopia of crap I've had on my plate the last six months, what has made it worse slash better slash most confusing is the reality that I might not be in Columbia much longer.  This will be the first time I've left and ventured out into the world on my own, headed where I know no one.  It seems most of my friends dole out a hug and say "see you in a couple months," but reality is sinking in of how very slim the possibility is that I will find and accept a job in Columbia.  Virginia, Texas, D.C., New York, one of the million bases in NC, all of these are much more likely.  And I'm still eyeing that internship in Europe as well.  It's still very exciting, and I can't wait to start seeing the world through my lens, but sometimes I wonder if that same reality is floating around in their heads, or if they really are that convinced that Columbia, SC is in desperate need of a photojournalist who could count her assignments on her fallangies (do toes count as fallangies?).  However that's spelled.  Either way, I leave for a long weekend with the parents and friends from high school tonight before the nine hour drive to Louisville, KY on Sunday, along with the next chapter of my life.