first day of school

Tonight I realized something important about myself:

I will always, always, always be excited for the first day of school.

I really can't help it.

As a kid, I looked forward to everything going back to school meant: new shoes, a new outfit, school supply shopping the second the supply list arrived at our house, seeing friends, even homework (I've always, always, always been a nerd as well).

Even now, I still look forward to these things. Obviously things have changed a bit, but some things remain the same.

I still get new shoes, but now they're more of a want than a need.

I still get new outfits, but rather than buy something specifically for school, I look for many ways and occasions to wear my clothes (including in professional settings because I'm old now).

I still look forward to school supply shopping (much like my movie heroine, Kathleen Kelly from You've Got Mail, who wishes she could send Joe Fox "a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils"). Something about new notebooks and pens and, yes, newly sharpened pencils (always Ticonderoga) is so welcoming to me. It's as if in these supplies there lies all sorts of possibility and promise for something wonderful to occur.

I still look forward to seeing friends, especially now that college is often the only thing we share...at the end of each year my friends and I go our separate ways for the summer, and it seems as if we lose touch until the school year rolls around again (I completely blame myself and my contentedness to be out of touch for this epidemic).

And yes, I still look forward to homework. Once it becomes overwhelming, I get over it, but there's always something so exhilarating about the first assignment of the year.

Tomorrow (today, technically) is the first day of school.

I've been moved into my house since Thursday and am absolutely loving it. It's so cute and charming and lovely and wonderful.

I love my roommates, I love my room, I love how close we are to campus and to college life.

I love the neighbors' noise that keeps me up at night, I love the sunshine that streams in my windows in the early morning, I love the easy one-block walk to my sister's apartment.

I love that my room this year is already more lived-in than my room last year, I love the creaky wood floors that I try to tread on lightly so as not to wake my sleeping roommates, I love the worn-in feel of my new home.

After a few days of settling in, I am ready for school to start. One can only sit on the front porch with Jane Eyre for so long before they get bored of reading and want to do something. Although Jane Eyre will soon be replaced with $250 worth of textbooks, at least it will be productive.

And although someday in the near future I will probably complain about the fact that it's too cold to sit on the front porch to read, as well as the fact that I no longer have time for Jane Eyre, for now I am embracing the excitement that the new school year always holds.

♥ abigail