When you leave the nest for good, you’ll spend the days leading up to it crossing off boxes on your calendar instead of packing boxes with your stuff.
You’ll find as many ways possible to slip in the fact that you’re moving out in any and every conversation and spend your free time daydreaming of life in the “real word.” The night before you leave you will pack up your car, because let’s face it, you want to start your new life ASAP. Then you will try to sleep. Accept you won’t sleep. Wait for the sun to rise. When it’s time to leave, you’ll hug your parents, promising that you’ll call, promising you’ll be safe, and yes, even promise to look up their friend or cousin so-and-so that “lives close by” but is actually hours from you. And then you’ll drive, maybe for hours, maybe for days, but it’s all good because you’re finally an adult and before you know it, there it is, your new city, your new home.
When you leave the nest for good, you will feel like you’re falling, headed straight for the hard ground. You’ll walk into your apartment and realize it looks nothing like the pictures (or the showroom for that matter). THOSE floor plans were already leased out. But you’ll smile at the dirt and you’ll smile at the bugs because it is yours and, well, you’re on a budget. You’ll learn the hard way that it’s cheaper to get cable and internet together instead of adding them later and you’ll call home on more than one occasion for things you never had to worry about. You’ll discover that furniture is expensive. Food is expensive. Being alive is expensive. Everything is expensive! And you’ll worry that you made a mistake. Job hunting will depress you, and you’ll question every decision you made in college because dammit, you should’ve gotten a business degree. And the jobs you are qualified for? Well they are of the scarce variety. Either that or they want 5-plus years of experience that college couldn’t give you. But you keep searching, keep applying, and keep rearranging that resume while working part time because you know your dream job is out there somewhere.
When you leave the nest for good, you begin to know what’s necessary, what’s just convenient, and between the two you’ll compromise. You will make mistake after mistake. You will bumble around for a bit. But it’s okay. You will become smarter, wiser. Because when you leave the nest for good, eventually you learn to fly, and the sky before you is beautiful and full of possibility.
