Goin' Back to Athens Town

For the record, the title of this post is actually the title of a song that's supposed to be an 'alumni favorite,' but truth be told I don't know any of the words, aside from 'Goin' back to Athens town,' and the only reason I know the song at all is because we played it every year for homecoming. I dunno...maybe I'm a bad alum (alumnus? Alumni? Dunno...wasn't an English major...). But I digress.

So I'm in Athens now. It's pretty surreal...but that might just be the 9 hour drive talking. Yeah, I drove straight through from DC to Georgia today, by myself, 590 miles. So 9 hours isn't really bad considering I stopped once for gas and once because of a nasty storm. I don't mind rain and lighting, but I draw the line at wind making me fishtail out of my lane.

I was also the most punctual I think I've ever been, or will ever be again. I'm not exactly known for my punctuality. I'm either really early or really late, and it seems that my arriving early is inversely proportional to the importance of the event. I'll be an hour early for work and not have anything to do, but if I'm supposed to meet a friend or have an actual meeting for work, one of the following things will happen: Multi-car pileup that backs up traffic for two miles; giant hole in the road because the D.O.T. doesn't get the concept of NOT working on the road in the middle of a weekday, again, backing up traffic for two miles; getting on the wrong Metro train; or simply sorely underestimating the amount of time it takes to get wherever I'm going. That latter probably occurs more than I'll ever admit. But again, I digress.

I sent my friend Amanda at 7:00, as I was just crossing from North Carolina into South Carolina, saying that I hoped to be there by 9:30. And I literally walked through the door of her apartment at exactly 9:30. Not bad for two and a half hours in advance, and 170 something miles away. I realize that none of you care about this, but I was proud. Ok...digression number 3.

I've come to the conclusion that, were I ever in the situation (God forbid), I could handle being tortured reasonably well. I just have this thing about dealing with unpleasantries (not a word, but sounds like one). I literally just put my mind somewhere else, do whatever it is I have to do. Maybe it’s all the years doing marching band in the Georgia summer, or working landscape in the Georgia summer, the coach flights to Europe, or the long road trips as a kid when my dad refused to stop, but it takes a lot to make me seriously uncomfortable. Even though I sat in my car for 9 hours today, it doesn’t feel like I sat in my car for 9 hours today. I literally just phased out for most of it...to the point that I seriously have no recollection of removing the gas nozzle, putting my gas cap back on, closing my gas tank, and putting the nozzle back. But I obviously did, because I ended up with gas, and didn’t drive off with the nozzle still in my car. Unless I did so without realizing, in which case I apologize to the Shell station of exit 160 in North Carolina. My bad...hopefully your insurance covers things like that. I guess every paragraph is going to be a digression, because here’s another one.

So anyway...here I am in Athens, and it’s quite a weird feeling. I was expecting to be all nostalgic and depressed and wishing I was still in school, but in many ways I’m not. I’m certainly nostalgic and maybe slightly depressed, but I learned tonight that I in no way wish I was still in school.

Over my four years here, I developed at least one memory for every nook and cranny of this town. And coming back after what seems like a long time (but in reality is only all of 2 and a half months), naturally they all came flooding back one at a time as I passed their respective landmarks. This of course was a quite nostalgic, as I remembered them as all happy memories. But all memories tend to seem happy if you hold onto them for long enough, I suppose. Naturally, there was a shade of depression behind this nostalgia as I realized that it was from a chapter in my life that is, in all reasonable likelihood, closed.

But once I arrived at Amanda’s place and there was talk of registering for classes, research papers, buying books, annoying professors, and the general school routine, I realized that I miss none of it.

My entire scholastic career I suppose was marked with a sense of apathy. Not that I didn’t care about learning, because I absolutely thrive on acquiring new knowledge...but I always had a hard time seeing the point of what I was being taught. Perhaps it was just my tendency toward rebellion, but I saw most of my assignments as a waste of time, and I have a hard time following through on things that I see as such.

In kindergarten, it was nap time. I had no use for a nap. I wanted to build things, draw pictures, anything but sleep. In first grade, it was gluing pasta onto construction paper. I’d rather be reading about snakes or something. In second through fifth grades, it was the entire gifted program. Don’t get me wrong...I totally dug getting to go to a different school a couple of days a week and being seen as a ‘smart kid,’ but to this day, I still can’t remember anything we actually did...aside from putting on stupid plays, science fairs, and random projects. I don’t recall any books, paper work, or grades, for that matter...

Through middle school, it was math. Which is a bit strange because I’m a very logical person -- I guess I just never saw the numbers the way everyone else seemed to. But neither did Einstein, and everyone cuts him slack.

Then in high school, it was English. My teachers consistently despised my writing, generally because it didn't fit the format they were teaching. I told them I didn't like their format and wanted to write however I wanted to write -- one teacher told me 'well, once you become a published author you can do that, but for now, you have to write the way I tell you...' Well, guess I win that one.

But if there's one thing I do miss, it's the people. The camaraderie of knowing that my friends are going through the same thing I am; going downtown on a whim; running into each other on campus; tailgating; pregaming; laughing at the Tate Preacher.

And it’s not that I’ll never see them again...I certainly will. Later today, in fact. But it will never be quite like it was. Yet somehow I know that’s ok. It’s like there was a ‘perfect storm’ of conditions that made things like they were, and without those same conditions, it can never be recreated. But the fact that I’m not devastated by this is pretty reassuring that I’m doing the right thing, and that uprooting myself and moving 600 miles away wasn’t a total mistake. It’s always good to have closure.