Slippery Downhill Slope

When I started Institute, I told myself I wasn't going to let it change me. I knew TFA was trying to test every fiber of our beings and break us down so that they could mold us into the type of people they wanted us to be. I was prepared for that. I'm mentally tough. I could take it. I would leave the Delta the exact same person I was when I got there, with 5 more weeks worth of memories and knowledge. I was wrong.
As I sit at my desk on the verge of week 4, reading over blog posts of mine from finals week, senior week and Induction, I'm realizing that I'm not the same person I was when I got here last month. I'm very different. And I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. That one line from that famous motivational saying keeps popping into my head... "if something tries to change you, let it". I suppose I should embrace the idea that this experience is going to change me. In the back of my mind I always knew it would.
Then I stop and think about the conversation I had with Liz at dinner tonight. We were recounting our July 4th weekends to each other (I went to New Orleans, she went to Memphis) and she was explaining to me that people got up at 8 a.m. this morning to start doing work, even though we don't have anything to hand in until Thursday. And then she was telling me about an SLA corps member who felt the need to go into her classroom on Saturdays during her first year, just so she could make sure everything was perfect. I don't want to be that person. That person has no life outside of work. So the two of us made a pact that we would 1. definitely go on our cross country road trip next summer, 2. call each other if we ever felt the need to go into school on a Saturday and 3. remember that it is possible to have a life outside of TFA and refuse to let it become our only existence. TFA is what I do and, for now at least, it is a part of who I am but that does not mean that I will let it become the only thing in my life. I'm going to stay in touch with my friends from school, do things that do not revolve around closing the achievement gap and not let every other joke I make be in reference to TFA.
Last night, after the fireworks ended, I was sitting on the steps of a gazebo on the edge of the Mississippi River in the French quarter, with a frozen daiquiri in my hand and a brass band playing a mash up of Kanye West and the Backstreet Boys. As I sat there, I started thinking of last year's 4th of July and how I spent it in DC with Liz, Erin and Nick. At that point, on that weekend, I was as content with my life as I ever could have hoped to be. If someone had come up to me last year, while I saw sitting on the Mall with Erin and Nick waiting for the fireworks, and asked me, "Kaitlyn Boyle, where will you be one year from now on the 4th of July?" I would have looked them in the eye and, without a moment's hesitation, said "I'll be right here. On the Mall with my friends, waiting for the fireworks." Never, in a hundred years, would I have said that I'd be in New Orleans with a daiquiri and a brass band. Not that it's a bad thing. It just nowhere close to where I thought I'd be.
I also realized something else last night. At some point, I will move back to the District. I'm learning more and more that it is the city I belong in... it's my second home. I may not get back there right away, and definitely have things I want to do before I arrive, but before I turn 30 I will have moved back there. Maybe it's my time in the Delta thats talking, and maybe I'll move to Charlotte in 2 weeks and love it more than I can describe, but DC is a part of me. This spring, I would drive to Tangy Sweet, or to the bank or to Costco and I'd catch glimpses of the Capitol and Dupont and I'd realize that, for all the trouble and aggravation it causes me, that city is my happy place. I say all the time that my happy place involves 2 palm trees, a beach, a pina colada and an ocean breeze. That is my happy place, in my fantasies. Bu DC is my real life happy place. Hot summers, bad traffic, poor snow removal and annoying text messages included. I'll take it all.
I guess this post has kind of turned into a bit of a stream-of-consciousness reflection on the past couple of weeks and how I've been feeling about them. It's probably time I start focusing this blog more on TFA related items but, to me, it has become so intertwined with my life that it isn't possible to distinguish the institution (the organization, not the training) from myself. And, in the end, I think thats exactly how Teach for America wants it to be.

MMX

Its winding down to the end here at Catholic University and I'm meeting it with mixed emotions. This past week has been a blur. But a good blur. We finished with senior week yesterday and spent today packing. Senior week was a week long event that we bought tickets to. It included a picnic, baseball game, casino night, movies on the mall and a dinner cruise on the Potomac. Add in the unofficial after parties and this week has flown by. I'm starting to realize that most schools, strangely enough, do not do senior week. I feel bad for those people. Because, for me at least, senior week has been an awesome and completely unique opportunity to spend a week with the entire senior class, reminiscing and making new memories, without the distraction of classes, finals or underclassmen (not to sound pretentious). It has been a final bonding experience for us and I know without hesitation that we've had some of our best times this week. I'm sure its because we're high on life, living without a care in the world and feel like we're invincible.
It probably also has to do with the fact that none of us is really willing to acknowledge the fact that after Saturday.... most of us may never see each other again. Sure, we'll keep in touch with and see out close group of friends, but what about the people on the fringes of our close groups? The people you don't hang out with every weekend but that you've had classes with for years and who share your major. Those are the people that we're all going to lose touch with. This sense of family and community that we have will be gone. The safety net that we've been living in for the past four years is going to disappear and, while we experience this to a certain extent in high school, college graduation is the complete ending of a chapter of our lives. I still see my high school friends around town and we had the summer to prepare and say goodbye. That's not the case here. Come Sunday morning, I'm packing up my car, driving over the Taylor Street bridge and when CUA disappears from my rear view mirror.... its over. I'm not coming back and I know I haven't fully processed it yet.
And I don't want to sound depressing. Graduation is beyond exciting. I'm thrilled with the prospect of it all. It's what we've spent four years working towards. To be out on the basilica mall on Saturday and have my diploma handed to me, with all my friends right beside me, will be one of the best feelings in the world. It just means a chapter of my life is ending. It's bittersweet.
The end of one chapter, though, brings about the start of another. I'm anxious and excited to start Teach for America, but I have my hesitations. I find myself sitting around questioning if I have what it takes to move to a new city I don't know, with people I don't know and start something so completely new and foreign. Then I remember that I've already done that--four years ago when I moved to DC and started college with 800 strangers. And now those strangers are my best fiends... my family and I'm clinging desperately to any little piece of normalcy in a vain attempt to try and reassure myself that it'll all be alright. And while I'm sure, in time, I will feel the same way about Charlotte and my Teach for America corps members, right now I'm just trying to keep two feet planted firmly on the ground and take everything that life is throwing at me. Hopefully, when its all said and done, I'm still standing.
For all the complaining I do about this school (and we all do a fair amount of it), it's given me some great things. Amazing friends, the confidence to go do what I know I'm supposed to be doing, the ability to know what a real sense of community and belonging feels like and the hope that I will be able to find that again where I'm going. Do I want this to end? No. But do I look back on the last four years and know that they've shown me how to do things I never thought I could? Yes.