A year isn’t just the good things. It’s everything else, too. The early-morning hangovers, tearful confessions, that one-too-many glass of wine. Fighting loneliness, fighting fear, just plain old fighting. The disappointments, the rejections, the fantasies that don’t quite come true. The nights that seem too long, the days you just can’t seem to get it together. All of that makes up the year. The good and the bad. The days you’d want to repeat a million times, and the ones you can’t think about too much because weeks, months later, they still sting. The emergency room visits, the homesick trans-Atlantic phone calls, the “it’s not you but I’m just not ready.” Too much too soon and circumstances out of your control. A year is dancing in the kitchen but breaking down in your best friend’s arms. The nights tangled up in bed with a boy, and the nights you walked home alone. Intertwining your life with these people you come to like and love, then having to say goodbye. A year is all of that. Just moments. Just snapshots. Of the mundane and the novel; the heartbreaking, beautiful, strange, and confusing. That’s all it is. This blog, this year. That’s all.

Other things I will miss: cheap fresh flowers, Marks & Spencer, the insanely late summer sunsets, 2-for-1 Wednesdays, Womcam, college bars, pubs, pub food, Pimms, Magdalen deer park, Oxford house parties, flat raves, Hassans, balls, Blackwell's hot chocolate, the fiction section of the Oxfordshire Public Library, Grand Cafe cocktails, going out multiple nights of the week, cute Brit boys buying me drinks, cute Brit boys, Holywell cemetery, The Vaults & Gardens, being called 'love,' the ivory tower, Oxford eccentricities, Oxford history, easy access to nightclubs, walking everywhere, 'cheers' as 'thank-you,' London, the Bodleian, cobblestone streets, the plethora of tea shops, mild (most of the time) weather.

Things I won't: The exchange rate. Windy, rainy days when an umbrella is useless. Bringing along my passport every time I want to buy a bottle of alcohol. Cornmarket late at night. The insanely early summer sunrises.

It's not quite an even split is it? No, I guess not.

"You only long for a place when you weren't really there to begin with," Linda said today. "When you were either caught up in the past or the future." An interesting, perhaps obvious idea. It makes sense. The places I can conjure at any moment are the ones I know like the back of my hand--Fairfield, the Cape, and Sarah Lawrence. Because I've spent years and years in all three. "Spend the next few weeks just sitting, observing," Linda told me. "Then no matter where you are, you'll always be able to go back."

So much of the last few weeks has become conflated, tied up with anxiety about leaving, inherent self consciousness, whatever it is I'm looking for. Projected onto other people, other things. "You have this fantasy world going," Jeff said last week. "It's because you're a writer." True. Or maybe it's just because I'm me. I guess you remember the good & leave out all the rest. I guess that's the best way to remember--at least this year.

So--what comes to mind at this very moment: first Oxford snowfall, running outside Merifield at midnight, bundled into sweatshirts and boots, everyone as giddy as little kids; Shawshank Redemption at the end of first term, a quiet night at home, Jeff running out to get wine; our first London excursion; the pub crawl during Fresher's Week, just for my inebriated comment to Alex about the exchange rate, and our bonding on the walk home; Halloween ghost tour with Amy; Christmas dinner in Hall; the lowkey days before term picks up, as we all trickle back to the flat. Every bop once we became close with the Brits. Spur of the moment London coffee date/ cute-boy flirty texts all the way through Europe. "You have interesting eyes." Exeter Ball debauchery; Manaka's birthday night at Bridge / piggy back rides down George Street at two in the morning / the night-before-Mayday / Wadstock Nelson-Mandela. And the Nelson Mandela at the end of Hilary term. Actually, pretty much every Nelson Mandela. The day the exchange rate dropped to 1.3 and we all rushed out to buy wine & desserts & things we didn't need. February snowstorms; Girls-only Valentine's day party; wandering around Bath with my best friend. Canterbury hotel rooms with Alex & inside jokes. Fireworks outside my window on Guy Fawkes night; lazy afternoons at Blackwells; Radcliffe Square at night. Twilight with Che; Oxford Autumn/Spring. When Cari came to visit. The fairy-like gardens of Anne Boleyn's home in Kent. Aimless walks with the girls in Summertown.

Lots of things.

Everyone asking last night how it feels to be leaving in a month made for some rather unsettling anxiety dreams. I woke up out of sorts, remembering something about standing in the rain, lamenting the lack of proper tea.

I am trying out a new strategy in regards to all this--denial. Just don't think about it.

Summer Eights was Saturday--an afternoon of Pimms, and boat races, and more Pimms, and basking in the sunshine, and crappy wine, and an ad hoc picnic. Monday was Che's birthday/flat rave, last night was Jonny & Kate's joint birthday party, tomorrow night is Keelan's, the night after that Jesse's goodbye party, the day after that London/Alex's birthday party. I will have been out every night this week except tonight.

"At least you'll have so many people you can crash with if/when you come visit next year," Emily said. This is true/ good to know if I come back with Amy next summer.

I have been mentally compiling lists lately. Of things to do, things I'll miss, things I won't miss at all.

However, what I need to actually be doing right now is writing. So I'm going to go try and do that. Even though I don't want to. I have too much trouble quieting my mind.