As of yesterday I'm officially twenty-five and to celebrate, I invited a few close friends to stay for a weekend. We spent our time enjoying food, drink and conversation and, as everyone packed their bags for home and the real world this morning, I snapped this picture of traveling bags.
Last year I had a monster birthday party in Ames, IA where I was working on my MA in English Literature. I invited thirty people to a dinner with a champagne toast followed by a trip to my favorite bar. It was a grand time meant to bring together all of the people I lived my life with--at school, at work, in my social life. Everyone got an invitation. This year though, I didn't feel quite like celebrating my life in the same fashion. The economy is still in the dumpster, especially for those of us in education who, thanks to the trickle-down effect of budget systems, are just now feeling the repercussions of the collapse. So I find myself, in some ways, paused between dreams. I haven't been able to secure a spot in a PhD program--not enough funding to go around. Nor have I been able to find a full-time job teaching English at community colleges--even more chronically underfunded than humanities departments at major universities. On good days I still find joy but on bad days I feel really, really stuck. When it came time to plan my party, it wasn't time for champagne toasts made at the head of a thirty-person dinner. I wanted to spend my birthday with my oldest friends, the ones who have provided both physical and emotional shelter over the years. I only invited five people and each and every one of them had to travel anywhere between two and six hours to join the party.
And so today I am thankful for traveling bags and the people that carry them, especially those dearest of friends who carry them on their way to visit me and end up leaving with tiny pieces of my heart.
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