Why Did You Leave Me?

Subject line of Mara's email to her boss or story of my life for the next two weeks?

Both.

All of the interns are leaving me one by one, and I'm going to have a fit. I probably won't cry or anything, but I have been blown away by my experience this summer. It has been better than I could have ever expected, and I am so grateful for the experience. I know I sound like a dork, but I am, so let's accept facts and move on.

I had a great job, cool boss, nice apartment, and lovely roommate, and I made really great friends. Not just friends of convenience like I expected, but friends I actually intend to keep. I fully expected to be in Evanston every weekend wishing I had done a better job searching for internships. It turns out this was probably the best experience I could have had this summer. I learned a lot about myself, both professionally and personally.

Now I'm trying to prepare myself for senior year. I can tell it is going to be an emotional roller coaster because I'm already feeling so many mixed emotions. I'm excited to return to campus as a senior because I feel so sure of myself and my place at Northwestern. I'm excited to live in an apartment with my friends. I'm terrified to start writing my thesis. I'm sad that I didn't take advantage of more in the last three years, but I'm hopeful that I can make up for it now. There's a lot running through my head, and I'm not even back on campus yet.

But this summer has made me feel really happy about my future. Sometimes I feel pretty average when I'm surrounded by MMSS students, but I'm actually really smart and capable. And it turns out that I'm better at making new friends than I would have thought, and they can turn out to be amazing. Even in such a short time, they know my sayings and understand my motivations and mostly appreciate my quirks. I personally see it as a good thing that Alex joined in on the "your poor husband" chorus and Joe predicted my reaction to the royal wedding (tears, duh) and Jessica indulged my excitement for the change jar guessing game. And I love Mara's instructional emails to herself (#6 Don't take advice from Alex and Kelsey) and Sierra's aggressive dance moves and Meagan's fondness for Chipotle.

It seems to me that life can be defined by the sum of all of one's relationships. Every person with whom you interact for more than five minutes makes an impression on your life, and if you are lucky enough to interact for weeks or months or years, then those relationships become a part of you. I think I've met some pretty wonderful people in my lifetime, and if I'm a product of my relationships with those people, then I will count myself as blessed.