"Every new beginning..."

"...comes from some other beginning's end."  Closing Time, Semisonic

I thought it was pretty fitting to start off with my senior quote from my high school yearbook.  Six years ago, I would never have dreamed that I am where I am now, closing one chapter and ready to begin another.  As I sit in our humble little cottage at the beach preparing for my last day of work, I am thinking about all the great memories I have made over the past 16 weeks and what a wonderful, indescribable, eye-opening experience this has been.  I only think I've said it about 100 times, but I learned invaluable information about myself and the world and have had some of the best moments of my life here.  Life as I knew it is dead and gone and I'm leaving here is such a different state than when I left.

I think the hardest part about leaving here is facing reality.  I'm ready to leave the island, but I'm not ready for all the responsibilities that come along with an independent adult.  I'm not ready to leave my safe little bubble at H3.  The second hardest part about the end of this internship is leaving the 3 girls who have kept me sane over the past 4 months.  Without the other interns, I probably would have fallen apart long ago.  We quickly learned that we roll "4 deep" and I'm lucky to have had these girls around through this experience. We've not only had some great nights at the Triangle, but movies, wine and gossip at the cottage, inappropriate but hilarious conversations around the dinner table, and other unmentionable adventures along the way.  We joke that this situation was a little like the Real World -- girls from all over the country thrown together and hoping for the best.  We live together, work together, eat together, and go out together.  Spending so much time together could have been disastrous, but somehow it worked and I'm lucky to have found friends in these girls.  I've also learned a lot about myself and life through being around them and conversations we've had.  It's so hard to imagine waking up on Monday morning at my parent's house and not seeing Samantha curled up with Pandy or having our morning conversation over breakfast.  I will especially miss the mornings playing catch-up after a night of going out for "one drink".

We're going back to our respective parts of the U.S. over the next few weeks, but we've got big plans for yearly reunions.  Until then, here's to you girls ;)