THE BEAST, IT IS TAMED

I've finally done it! I have transformed my dust-infested, stuffed animal-laden, childhood toy receptacle of a room into a bona fide living space for a college grad! And it is mine. All mine. My precioussssss, if you will.

Ironically, the proud and possessive feelings I now have for my room sprung directly from the painful-but necessary-decision to remove all of my LOTR posters. All of them. Because I had more than two. At least I barely escaped getting a cardboard cutout of Aragorn.

Taking down posters has been an odd removal of paradigms. When I was 15, I went angsty and put up all my LOTR posters (because that's what no one else did) and decided to paint every inch of my room the most defiant color I could think of--orange. Yeah. I stand by the color 'cause it actually looks pretty cool, but I even painted the baseboards and the ceiling. I'm gonna have to change that soon. Taking down these posters, and even facing the prospect of repainting part of my ORANGE! room white is a big step for me. Mostly because it involves vacuuming the baseboards. Sigh.

Graduation has had an odd effect on me. It has an odd effect on everyone, I know, but what I've found to be true for me (and, I suspect, for many people) is that this time is not just an inevitable sinking into despair. I'm not working yet, so I've had time for The Scouring of the Chambre and other eternally-delayed tasks. It's an interesting process, mostly because you learn that you don't have to be the person you thought you were anymore. I'm thinking also about the fact that I've never considered myself a science-y person, but here I am listening to Morgan Freeman guide me Through the Wormhole and watching the NatGeo channel on a regular basis! I guess what I'm saying is, you don't have to be the person you were in college after college. I'd always thought college was the time when we Define Ourselves, and it is, but life continues after college. Change continues after college. Growth continues after college. 

In the wise words of one of the most trumped-up characters in LOTR: "There is still hope."