I’ve been back from Boston for almost ten days now. The boomerang has come full-circle, and I find the girl catching it a different person than the girl who threw it. The changes are good; in the past I’d have just let it hit me in the face, then staggered around bewildered by the unexpected violence.

Not this time. I’m back in New York, boomerang in-hand, ready to take on the future. Whatever the hell that means.

And in the past week, I’ve done the following things:
1. Signed a lease for a big studio on the Upper East Side with The Boyfriend.
2. Accepted an award for Academic Excellence and Outstanding Achievement in my field. I was called brilliant and curious by my most respected professor, effectively making all the sleepless nights and overwhelming debt worth it. My parents were pleased, too, and all that jazz.
3. Graduated, entirely, Magna Cum Laudi, with a BA in Film and Screen Studies.
4. Drank far too much champagne and, consequently, got to move into New Amazing Apartment completely hungover. (Thank you, Parents and Vinnie, who thought James was a waiter until my delicate, drunken self announced that he was newly a graduate with Latin Honors! And then Vinnie bought us all a shot of Patron silver that came in a tumbler the size of my fist… The rest is nauseated history.)
5. Caught up and reconnected with an old friend who very much shaped the person I’ve grown into.
6. Unpacked every single shoe I own into my new wall of closets.

Needless to say, I’m exhausted. I’m also taking two summer courses at FIT and actively working to reshape my article, so Dr. Zimmer won’t revoke all the lovely things she said about me as I awkwardly shuffled across the stage to get my accolades.

I must look back and see if I’ve explained the whole epic story of the lost-friend-found, and if not I’ll have to relate it. It’s a good story, even if it didn’t necessarily have my favorite version of a happy ending. Real stories with real people often don’t, but they’re still good in the retelling.

Tomorrow is the last day of moving, after a week of trauma and painting and horrible stubborn edging tape and not being able to find anything. And that perfect boyfriend of mine, the one who found me the apartment with a WHOLE WALL OF CLOSETS, has let me cry, hyperventilate and have a small hissy fit over the past almost-ten-days.

I’ll be whipping my dramatic little ass into shape immediately, because Lord knows he’s tolerated enough of my antics. And now he lives with me. And alllllll mmmmyyyy ssshhhoooeeesss.

The moving in marks a new chapter for us, one with ample amounts of bathroom space for a very reasonable price. There are still some things up in the air for us– where I’ll be doing my Masters’, for example– but for the most part I’m largely looking forward to the blissful slide back into my beloved routine.

I’ll be carrying the experience of Boston with me, though, still grateful for every minute I got to spend honing my work in the salty sea air.

I’m thinking of it as framing the boomerang and hanging it in my delightful new kitchen.

James came in last week and then last night, I had a small freakout.

I guess to be accurate, I should say, “James came in on Wednesday morning and stayed 24 hours and then left and I was sad and now I can’t sleep by myself anymore, which makes me angry, because as I remembered very recently, I used to be overwhelmingly proficient at being alone.” And when I realized that, I panicked a little. Why?, you demand. Because I’m me and that is what I do.

The problem is that I’m simultaneously realizing two things at once. 1. I am not the independent girl I used to be, and that makes me angry, because I really liked her and what she stood for and 2. I feel like I have absolutely no control over the way my life is playing out right now, like I am helpless, and caught up in the speed at which my life is moving.

I blame the bubble.

Elissa, the GM of the PUMA City project, and I had a great conversation last night about how this project disconnects you from the rest of your life, how much like a bubble it is here, where it’s so easy to eat, sleep, breathe, think, dream PUMA City. The excitement is infectious. The culture is immersive. The goal is huge. There is no room on the radar for anything else.

Anything else, like choosing my Summer 1 classes, to start in a month. Anything else, like redrafting my article to finally send something to Dr. Zimmer. Anything else, like studying for the GMATs, the GREs and applying to graduate schools.

And the apartment hunt is not, from where I stand, going well. This is because I stand five hours away, completely unable to be helpful, or add insight, and it’s driving me up the wall.

And somewhere amidst the bouncing ideas and the talking heads that cascaded through my brain last night, my old roommate Megan’s voice rang clear above the rest, “You can’t move in together unless you’re ready to take the next steps that that triggers.”

James and I decided last night that we guess it’s too soon to talk about What’s Next after we move in together. Because, who knows, anyone could, in my apartment, at any time, be killed by a shoe avalanche, and then we’re both buggered, aren’t we?

We don’t know what the next steps are. I think that’s what it comes down to. We’ve made it this far because one or the other was walking in at least semi-familiar territory. Now suddenly, we’re not. Neither of us have ever been so in love, or so out of our element, or so convinced that something is so perfect. And to take that all into consideration at once is starting to become a bit overwhelming because– aside from my compulsive need for plans– it has been my experience that if you don’t treat this kind of relationship with care and respect and keep it moving, everything likes to fall apart. That, I can say, I’ve done before.

I just don’t want us to move in together and then realize that the next steps aren’t things we’re interested in. Moveover, it’s not like us not to have a clear idea of where we’re taking our lives. Instead I feel like we’re both bobbing in the currents right now, not steering or in control of anything. ‘At the mercy’ of something else is an odd place to be for both of us. And I really dislike that we collectively agreed we’re not ready for something. I know that’s juvenile, and that there are loads of issues with that sentence, and that we can’t possibly be ready for everything, all at once, when we’d like to be.

But everything is jilted, warped through the lens here inside my bubble. I’m tapping against the side, trying to communicate what I’m feeling out to the rest of the world, and as the words escape my lips, I hear them muffle. They get stuck in the barrier, they get lost in the distance, find their way back to me and accrue at my feet. I am Alice at the end of her good cry, floating around in a sea of her own making, wondering why she couldn’t just pull herself together.

I know everything is going to be fine. I know we’ll figure it out, being two very bright young wippersnappers and all. I know I love him, and that I’d move heaven and hell to make sure this relationship stays intact, unmarred, and full of fart jokes.

I have 17 days left here. Then the bubble will burst and the real world will be able to find me again. I’m sure when I look back, what I should be doing with this time will become glaringly obvious to me, and that all these doubts and insecurities and questions will seem so trite. The obvious clear answers will appear magically, and I will feel foolish for not having seen them earlier. It’s just a matter of getting there.

And we all know how I am In The Meantime.