BEDA 2: Kalamazoo Exodus

I have to leave for work in ten minutes. This is the perfect time to start writing this blog.

August is coming up on me pretty fast, a lot faster than I thought it would. It's one thing to say "I'm going to move out of Kalamazoo eventually," or "next year," but when it starts to be four months the reality of it is a little daunting. I have to find a new apartment and a new job in a different city, and that's a process I'm not looking forward to. But it's something I have to do.

Last night was my friend Paul Rich's final Kalamazoo hurrah before he moves onto bigger at better things in St Louis, and something became apparent to me: we're all on our way to somewhere else. The people that I associate so closely with Kalamazoo will not be here five years from now, and if I were to stay I would watch them trickle out one by one. I like that idea in one sense, because it makes me optimistic about the future and happy for everyone because their ambitions will lead them to better things. In another sense it makes me sort of sad, because Kalamazoo is so unlike my hometown. I can always go back to Commerce and see familiar faces, friends and family that all live in one convenient place. But five years from now, and maybe in less time than that, I suspect Kalamazoo will be virtually deserted of all the people I knew here. They'll all be somewhere else, and big nights out at the bar and parties with these specific people will be an indefinite thing of the past.

That bums me out, but it's not all bad to leave the past in the past.
Here's to the future.