Towards the end of a chapter...

I've got a great summer job. I work for Access Community Health Centers, 40 hours/week, as an Enrollment Specialist. Essentially, I help low-income people get health insurance. It's very rewarding and I am almost earning some actual money, which is very nice given the state of the economy. It's also nice to get the 9-5 bug out of me. I have often thought that it would be great to only have to work 40 hours per week. And it is. I leave my work at the door (except for when I spread the news of the new health insurance program to all the low-income folks I know out there. Check it out!). I enjoy a regularity of schedule and having lists of tasks that can easily be completed and checked off. But I am getting a little bored, and I think that come the end of July I will be more bored. Which will be great, because it means I will want to head back to school in fall. I have often worried about jumping right into the PhD, because it means a lot of work, and a life-style that doesn't change much from being a student. Even if I get a faculty position or something, I will always be working hard, and my work will be with me everywhere. It's all going to be about learning the next thing, reading and knowing a lot, and competing with others in the field (in a way), and I am sure I won't stop doing things that are important to me in addition.

In the evenings, I mostly hang out with people: Jan, Nick, Chandra, Scott and Emily, my housemates, Clare, Julie, Kevin, even the old D&D group, Avi and Alexa, Ari, Kathy, all sorts of folks. If you are reading this: I hope I get to see you all before I leave. I am getting a chance to do the socializing I wished I could have done for the past five years, and it's exhausting. I have awesome antics worth recording practically every night. I am going to just enjoy this while it lasts, because I know that soon I will be mostly alone in a giant city that I do not know at all.

When I left for Madison, I did not really feel like I had a home. The place where I lived, yes, but my home had been the biology lab on the second floor of Cooper, and that hadn't been home for several months, not since my graduation. The city itself felt home-like to me, but I think that really meant I felt at home behind the wheel of my car. I felt very lost my first year in Madison, but then I was so fortunate to discover my niche, and through it, meet hundreds of amazing people. I have developed so much as a person, and part of that has been having a steady place to anchor me as my home, the Phoenix Co-op. I find that I will miss everything about it, from the house meetings that can last hours, to the spontaneous way in which the remodeling/spring-cleaning spirit will catch on and the house will change. I will miss the unique and precise sensation of coming home, the few steps and the noise of the gate, the small exhalation that comes when I enter my garden and feel safe (!), searching for one of the two keys that will let me in the heavy old front door, the push open, and then the sound of the door closing combined with the gentle air-pressure change from the sudden shutting and the impulse to catch the door before it slams. The atmosphere change, from outside to in. The sight of the foyer, possibly some of my housemates, the huge living room with all the natural light streaming in, looking up at the decorative plates and faces or the ornate rail of the spiral staircase. This is my home. For the first time in my life I am not in a hurry to leave.