stereotypical single woman

Yesterday, while perusing the North Carolina Flickr groups I found this picture. Visually it’s really not too interesting or exceptional but it caused me physical pain in my gut when I saw it. Memories so vivid came back to me that they made me forget where I was. I rode this bus five times a week, twice a day, for three years. I remember so many things about it - the molded Carolina blue seats that were always stained; the way it would be so crowded on rainy days that sometimes there wouldn’t be a place to stand without being stabbed by dripping wet umbrellas and you’d have to wait for the next one; sitting there with my handsewing on the trip home getting looked at like a freak by all the other grad students (mostly grad students rode the bus, it was free, we were poor) because I was working on a ruff instead of lugging a physics book home with me; running down the driveway of my apartment complex because the bus was ten minutes early and having it leave while I was outside banging on the door; waiting at the covered enclosure on NC 54 in the cold air on winter mornings thinking it would never show up; the 1/2 mile walk across a beautiful campus from the bus stop to the Dramatic Arts building that I very rarely appreciated because I was too busy hurrying to get to class or get to the bus; being so glad I got a seat instead of having to stand so I could just sit and not think for fifteen minutes until I got home, fixed dinner, and got in my car to go back to school for another five hours; and the really cool bus drivers that were always so nice to us, the ungrateful, self-important, exhausted students who just wanted to get home.

All of this feels like it was a lifetime ago, but it also feels like it was yesterday (in actual time I was there from 2001-04), and it left me a little confused. Maybe everything was so vivid because even though I keep telling myself not to think about it until after the first of the year I’m already worrying about going back to school. The forms that will have to be filled out, financial aid to be applied for, the notes that have to be taken, the papers that will need to be written, the sleep that will be dearly missed, the knots my stomach will be tying itself into, etc… are already going through my head. It’s scary and exciting at the same time, and I haven’t had that in my life in a while.

On a completely unrelated note - this post gives me hope, and I couldn’t agree with it more.