Wet Hot American Summer

I'd say this summer has certainly been something to write home about, but it's not yet over. A week from Saturday, I and many of my things will be slugging up to Chicago to take residence in a new apartment in that new city. I'm starting to get nervous. Real nervous. I'm forcibly reminded by these moving anxieties of two similar summers' ends.

Aug 2001, a sad and lowly freshman in a new school. I remember my parents driving me up to Kirksville in our sweet minivan, me sleeping on the back seat. I fell asleep and hoped the drive would never end. I started crying in a Staples store, and my mom hugged me, saying "I was going to be mad if you didn't cry." I couldn't eat dorm food until I was truly hungover for the first time. Things went uphill from there.

I remember the night before that trip in the minivan, the muggy KC August and the interior of Stef's ancient Green Machine. Why did we think we were different, that no one else had ever undergone such an uprooting? But we did. I did. Thinking back now, I know that I wouldn't relive high school for the world.

Aug/Sept 2003, left behind in my parents' home, in my summer job, while all my friends returned to school. I was working and preparing for my first trans-Atlantic flight, for a stay in the apartment of Spanish strangers. I had forgotten the terror of those last weeks until recently. It still surprises me - how can such a happy person, so excited to live, be so frightened of a thing she's waited for?

Two nights before I left, I watched "Wet Hot American Summer" after my parents and brothers had gone to sleep. Engrossed, I found myself shocked on the couch after the movie ended. I watched special features, little shorts on the making of "Wet Hot American Summer," anything to postpone the fact that soon I'd have to accept such a monumental task.

Now here I am, sitting in a room as messy as it's ever been, with scanty packed boxes lining the periphery. I'm leaving this afternoon to visit friends, and I won't return until 3 days before my scheduled move-in date. What was I thinking? Did I think that if I didn't pack, I wouldn't have to deal with my fear of the unknown? Did I think I could lie on the couch watching special features forever?

Things will get done; they always do. I will move a week from Saturday. I will start school again after a gap of two years, and I will work hard to impress my peers and professors alike. I'll somehow have enough money to eat, to go to concerts, to buy beers after long weeks. But for now, all I want to do is go rent "Wet Hot American Summer."