and three and a half minutes felt like a lifetime

And you were standing
On the hood of the car
Singing out loud
When the sun came up.

And I know I wasn't right,
But it felt so good.
And your mother didn't mind,
Like I thought she would.
And that REM song
was playing in my mind.

-Better than Ezra

This song has been in my head since yesterday. Tonight I drove by the dome at night just to see it. It was like I was Claire in Elizabethtown taking one of those goofy mental pictures. I felt like this was one of my last chances to see it, and I wanted to see it tonight. I still have a little less than 4 months left, but now that I know it is real and that I am leaving, it changes how I think. There are so many things that I will miss. But if I stay here and become complacent, I will miss out on whatever else can be out there for me. When I first came to USM for Girls State, I hated the campus. The black and gold everywhere made me want to vomit. I thought that they should tear down the school and give the money to the other state institutions. Oh, how much a year can change you! How things change! Tonight as I drove around seeing the campus at night, I found myself crying (and for the first time in a long time, they were happy tears). For Good from the Wicked soundtrack was playing, and it was so fitting. I could dedicated that song to several people that I have met during my Hattiesburg stint. It will be hard to leave them. It will be hard to say goodbye, but it feels right. I can't do something because it is comfortable and easy. So for now, I'm making a list of things to do this summer, anticipating what I might miss and trying to get enough of those things to tie me over until I get to Hattiesburg again.

Driving around tonight, I felt so alive. I can't remember the last time I felt that way.