Even when you can remember the past, you are still condemned to repeat it in blogs. Over and over and over.

So! That’s done. I have finished my first day as a professional, and of course it was not as godawful as I feared. Sure there is a lot to learn, but I am more than equal to the job. I helped people—really, really helped them. And so I came home this evening, and heated up some soup, and cracked open a bottle of wheat beer (not Upland, alas, but I do the best I can with what I have) and finished a novel, and puttered around the flat in my pjs while Austen scurried and ran around under my feet and cooed and purred, and Magdalene looked down upon us both with deep disdain. I played my New Age internet radio, and talked to Michael and my sister, and played Sudoku. This is my life, right here, this evening. The only moment I am guaranteed, this Now. It’s not bad at all—pleasant, and quiet. Not lonely, but solitary.

My first paycheck should come in at the end of July. Aside from the requisite bills and rent (oh god, I will be able to make rent on my own, thankyoujebus) I will indulge in a couple of things that, in the past few weeks, I have come to view as luxuries: A broom and dustpan. Collars and tags for the cats. Razors refills. A bottle of wine. I might actually go hog wild and buy myself a vacuum. It’s nice to know the drought has a definite end-date.

In a very fitting end to the day, I brought home the last box that I made from Indiana to the library. It was a box of books—mainly history books, and nineteenth century fiction. It was rather poetic: on the day I began my first professional job, my first day as a real adult, away from school, I busted out some solid ties to my past, my former life as a student of history and Victorian studies (party like it’s 1899, people), a very pretentious pseudo-scholar. I take myself (a little) less seriously these days, sure, but the history nerd is still in there. I have retained that part of myself, for I am the sum of all my lessons, all the people I have known, the places I have traveled, the emotions I have experienced, the knowledge I have gained. I may be a professional, I may be a librarian, I may never be a student again, and my youth may slip into the inevitable weariness and resignation of middle age…but I am still me. I am still the pompous history nerd, the jaded library science student, the idealistic librarian, the screwball baby sister, the too-blunt social liability that uses words like "snot" and "cock" way too much. I am all of it. I might be changing, I might be trying to be happier and more confident and brave and tolerant and forgiving and less...crass? (Boo!) I might be trying to chuck out the less pleasant aspects of my personality. But by god, I will hang onto that core part of me that got me here, in SoCal, all alone, in one piece, and a hopeful smiling piece at that.

I just might not talk about bluestockings and the volk as much. Somehow those were never good ice-breakers at a party.