Yesterday I left Washington after a month long Winter break. I spent the time mostly alone with my dogs and with my mother on the weekends when she was off from work. The time was rather short if you thought about it and I spent majority of it doing nothing. As I left I wondered if it was going to be the last time I was going to say goodbye to the place, to my mother, stepfather, my dogs. It's not as if I can afford to keep going back every break and eventually I'll be too busy with work to even take vacations. If that's the case, then should I have used my time better? How could I have? I spent every moment I could with my mother and there was rarely a moment I wasn't playing with my dogs. I don't regret anything. If I had done something spectacular with my time then it would've been a forced memory. It wouldn't have been quite me and wouldn't have been enjoyable.
Auburn was never really a town I got to know. The people I lived next to were nothing more than sounds I heard from within my own room. The school was nothing more than a place I just happened to graduate from. Do I regret coming to Auburn? A bit I admit. I regret spending my last year of high school in a place where I knew no one and had to quickly scrounge of friends and memories quickly. Friends and memories that were worth nothing and would fade quickly. I don't regret my reasons for coming though. If I hadn't come to Auburn, I would've never experienced living with my mother. I would've never had the time to properly apply to schools. I probably would've never been accepted to Parsons and be living the New York like I am now. I think living in partial isolation for a year was worth it all. It's not as if I was completely without friends. Those back in Kansas City were only a text away. Long distance friendships are what keeps me going still.
Amongst the rain and the busy, self-absorbed people, I sit and wonder if this same time next year I will be saying goodbye once again to a city I never knew.
