Yes, this is going to be a short post, and yes, the cover image is just a Snapchat of my breakfast I took this morning, but I really needed to say something about the significance of today and how I'm feeling about it.
Today is the first day of school, in my last Quarter of school. In just a handful of months from right now, I'm going to be graduating from the University of Washington Seattle, and suddenly, all of that comfort of the structure of schooling that has, up to this point, dictated my life, is going to be wiped out. Any confidence I found in the idea of "potential Savannah" - the things I might become or be able to do, only once I had struck off the yoke of mandatory education and set out to seek my own fortune - will be resolved only into the actions that I take. I can't just make the excuse of being too young or inexperienced anymore, because not only am I not that young, I'm plenty experienced.
True to the same feelings that I had when I graduated high school almost four years ago (!!!), I feel like I only just started making the most of my time here. The University of Washington is a big school, in a big city, rife with possibilities and opportunities to explore not just the area around me, but the people who occupy it, and the ways I relate to both of them. I have a notoriously strong barrier around my comfort zone, something that is borderline insurmountable on most days, but in the past year and a half or so, I've finally been feeling my way out of it, and the experiences I've had as a result have come to define my collegiate experience. Panhellenic, Alt Spring Break, working as a Student Caller... these are all opportunities that I only made the most of relatively recently.
However, one personal platform stands firm through it all: even when I was still a scared freshman sitting on the floor of my sorority room, too shy to even walk through the house by myself until about a week and a half into my Freshman Fall Quarter, I knew I had this.
By this, I mean not just my blog itself, but the ability to express myself in a way that drew self-reflection, greater understanding, and a means of both projecting and focusing on the things I enjoy. Playing in the Pages has given me the break I needed from the outside world, the outlet I craved for voicing my opinions, and the point of reference I use to measure the ways I developed as a person, as a writer, and as a critic, for over the past five years. It's grown in so many ways, just like I have, over all this time, with changes in organization and format to match my increasing ability to write and edit. It helped me secure the opportunity to write for College Fashion for two awesome years, and it's still something I'm proud to know my family and friends read regularly.
Playing in the Pages reflects just a fraction of the world I occupy and the things I love, but it's been here for the entirety of the duration of my college experience. I've been having difficulties expressing to people the extent of the deep-rooted panic I feel at my impending graduation, and the job hunt and bevy of "adult" expectations that follow it... but this blog serves as a stalwart example of all of the experiences I've had, all the places I've gone, and all the friends I've made, as well as all of the books I've read.
I'm so happy I have it, and I'm happy to have all of you along for the ride with me, too.
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