Carpe Diem

When the people in my program started receiving Year Progress Reviews from the faculty, I was grotesquely curious about what my letter would say. I had no idea that at the end of the school year, my professors would gather together to discuss me; talk about their perceptions of my performance, attitude, and effort; and eventually hand me their verdict of my being on scholastic stationary. The stories I was hearing were not promising: letters informing you that “your study habits have been brought into question” or “your professors feel that your performance would improve if you let your voice be heard and contributed to class discussions” let you know that faculty took note of all their students’ shortcomings.

Had my professors been looking at me this whole year with hidden suspicions of my weaknesses? Have they been putting a lens to flaws I didn't even know I had? Was my professor offended when I said "shit" in class? I had to know what they thought.

A few days later when I got my letter, I ripped the envelope quickly and scanned through the report.

Dear Anthony... over the past year... exceptional performance... stellar reputation... nice body... yada yada yada...

... and then somewhere near the end:

We would like to see you explore more opportunities with the Applied Psychology Association of Penn State Harrisburg.

So after all that, the thing they’d like me to work on is to go to more student club meetings? They want me to be more social? That’s it? What a fucking joke! I had a brief laugh (and gave myself a brief pat on the back; I can be an arrogant bitch sometimes). In the end, though, I took note of their advice.



My parents bought me a ticket to Florida for me to come down for my birthday. Every day I spent my time with my wonderful family and my aunt and cousins, who had just moved from 15 minutes away to actually into the neighborhood. Back in college I’d return home and catch up with a few of those friends who happened to be in the area. It could be at my house, Starbucks, the pub. Wherever it was, we’d hang out and enjoy the company of the friends we find ourselves relying more and more upon memories to preserve a bond.

Over a game of poker, my cousin asked me if I still had friends in Pensacola. I think it may have been the first time I verbalized something that had hit me a year before: everyone had finally moved on. While not all my friends left Pensacola after high school, over the last five years they’ve found jobs, moved to other cities, gotten married, pursued acting in New York, all the usual evolutions.

Every Thanksgiving after high school, I’d call up some old friends to come over after dinner, hang out, and eat dessert at my house. Last year, the group dwindled to three people. It’s very possible there won’t be anyone to call this year.

Here’s the cliché part where I’m supposed to say that I took for granted that my friends were here and assumed they’d always stay frozen in time while I was off doing my own things. The truth is I always knew that we would all move on slowly but surely. I wasn’t naïve to the fact that one day my family would be the only people at the door to greet me at home. Prepared or not, though, I still felt somber. My metaphorical teenage bedroom had finally become barren of all things except packed boxes of yearbooks and old movie ticket stubs.



If all goes well, I should be going for my doctorate in the fall of 2006 (though that year sounds greatly futuristic, keep in mind that yes, 2006 is only 5 months away). Those loathsome days of requesting letters of recommendation, tweaking my personal statements, and mailing applications to graduate schools are soon returning. Many of my envelopes will be addressed to schools in the New York area. I want to be in New York.

Whether I'm drinking a beer with Jerk in Baltimore or sitting in an acting studio a few blocks from Times Square, I make it very clear during conversation that my latest aspirations take me to New York. It’s odd, but I have more friends and people I genuinely like spending time with in New York City than anywhere else. I have family there and cousins my own age whose company I enjoy. My best friend from high school lives in Queens. I discover more and more of my college friends’ endeavors are taking them to Manhattan. When I go out with the woman I’m currently having the pleasure of getting to know, I pick her up in Harlem. And then we have the countless other relatives scattered across the outskirts of the city, family who are my best link to the past, to my past.

My best friend from college now lives less than 90 minutes away in Maryland. Between all the fun I know I'll have with Jerk and reliving the stories I always end up with while in New York, I’m constantly arranging plans to visit all these people I care about. Luckily I love my car Lorraine, and equipped with my sexy new iPod, I’m always ready to get in my car and head out to wherever God takes me.

I have weekly meetings with a professor of mine with whom I’m working on a research project, a project that could potentially give me one of those extra lines on my resumé that would break a tie with fellow doctoral applicants. He laughed when I told him that I had just returned from a weekend in Baltimore. I spend my time everywhere but Harrisburg, he said. That’s a fairly accurate statement. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I came into our Monday meeting and not been either just returning from a trip or about to leave for somewhere.



Part of my reason for traveling so much this summer is to take advantage of this lighter schedule, to “seize the day” in a way, but another motive lies beneath. What would I do here in Harrisburg? Who do I have here to confide in, to be my complete self around, to get drunk with? I’ve been in Pennsylvania a year now, and the truth is that I can count the number of true friends I have here, people I trust and feel wholly comfortable showing all sides of me to, on one hand.

And I’d still have 3 fingers to spare.

Summer is wrapping up. The friend on my middle finger packs up and returns to school in about a week. The buddy on my pointer finger lives 45 minutes away. My Baltimore and New York friends will be traveling on business, packed with work, back at school. Fall semester will bring papers and studying that will require efforts that seep into the weekends. Soon I will have little practical choice but to keep my butt in park and have extensive stays in Harrisburg.

I’m not willing to sit on my couch in the fall, X-ing out the passing days on the calendar until my next trip to the outside. Like it or not, I need to be in Harrisburg for the next year. And despite what I may say about this city, there's a lot of good here, and there are tons of great people to befriend. I just have to find them.

When it's all said and done, I will have spent 2 years of my life in Harrisburg. That may not seem like a long time, but I have a sagging shoe box full of memories from my 2 years in the dorms of East Hall. At this point in my life, 2 years is an era, about 8.5% of my existence. With the setup of my school and work schedule, the opportunities to fill a scrapbook are few, but they exist. I've got to open myself up to finding them, even if that means going to a stupid student meeting from time to time.