Yes, I am.

My time at the University of Kentucky ended and my self-discovery by personal definition by occupation journey faked to fake completion, I am a college-degreed waiter.

My emotions surrounding this situation vary by the day, if not the hour. It’s a job. It’s only rarely a bad job. Last Saturday (10/11), a double shift of fifteen and three-quarters hours put me the closest to a psychotic episode I’ve been since I returned from Vienna to my Lexington life and a pair of majors of which I should never have been within a country mile.

And so, my Lexington life continues, gathering ever more speed toward a Journalism Master’s, God willing.

It’s high time my ass was removed from its secure hiding place and put out there in a field I want to be in. In a field I care about. In a field that moves me, not a field that makes me want to pick up and move.

I almost did. Pick up and move, that is. For right at about sixteen days, a couple weeks after graduation, I was moving to Seattle with Jon. It was going to be a new life. A life away from this University, away from my college mistakes, away from whatever it is that I felt I’d become.

You’re reading this, I’ve referenced still living in Lexington. It’s obvious I didn’t go.

I got a pen and paper. I got a calculator. I got no sleep for three nights or so.

I got sense, then I got honest.

Running to the furthest point in the continental States wasn’t going to fix me. It was just going to bankrupt me. It wouldn’t erase anything except my checking account balance (which I do quite well on my own, thank you very much) and likely do the same to a couple incredibly important friendships.

And now I’m more honest with myself than I’ve been in a very long time.

That’s why I took the GRE; that’s why I’m applying to graduate Journalism schools.

And now I’m smiling more.

There have been more than a few times in my life where running away was most appealing.

I can never know what might have happened if I had moved to Seattle.

I’m more than alright with that. Few times in my life have I been more at peace with who I am.

That’s what has me smiling more.

Current musings: Jenny Lewis’s new solo record Acid Tongue.