One month until I graduate. Or at least I’m supposed to. Sometimes I don’t know if I should be optimistic and truly believe I will, or be realistic and expect something remotely cataclysmic to come along and destroy this opportunity for me to finally get out of school. I’m leaning towards optimism, however.

My to-do list looks a bit like this:

• One 5-page paper every week for the next month
• One 10-15 page paper before April 22nd
• One 10-15 page paper before April 29th
• 10-15 pages of a 20-25-page paper before April 29th

I’ve also got to make sure I’ve read just about everything for class and that I can ace the finals (just so there is no chance of failing the entire class). That includes prepping for one of my exams with pre-selected essay questions (and thankfully I’m averaging a 90 in this class), but I think I will do just fine in that class.

This comes out to somewhere around 50 to 65 pages in the next month, not including the exams themselves.

I can do it, right? What is that, 15 pages, more or less, a week?

I think I can do it. In fact, I know I can do it. I’m going to be optimistic this time. If I keep to this schedule, then one paper and some studying is all I’ll have to do after the 29th, and that ‘ll be a relief.

I honestly can’t believe I’ve made it this far. This month, more than many of the other crunchtimes and agonizing, month-long, panic-inducing stretches I’ve experienced in the last six years (this’ll be #10, not including week-long study sessions for a different format of classes in Sweden).

If you think all of this stress caused by school alone is a lot, don’t forget that I’ve also got to worry about employment; I’ve also got to find myself a source of income and a good start to my career. That’s a whole ‘nutha story, and an entirely different train of thought right now (that deserves a blog post on its own!).

Tonight was especially bad. I had a big blowup with the waiter boy (I thought this was over a while ago?!!), and to top it all off, I’m so stressed about money that I nursed a nosebleed for a good hour before I could go swing dancing. I really didn’t need that kind of stress tonight, and like I tend to do during times like this, I started to think about what it would be like to get out of here.

It’s funny that once I think I’ve actually gotten used to things here in Boulder, spats with (ex)boyfriends and money issues and overall happiness issues start popping up, giving rise to yet another of the many plots I’ve created that involve moving away.

There are plenty of reasons I should leave Boulder. Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong. Other times I just think it would be easier to find a job elsewhere. And even more miserably, dating doesn’t come easy in this town. (Ironically, two ex-boyfriends — whom I unfortunately see all over the place in this little berg — actually live in Denver now, but they work up here enough to run into me all the time.)

Sometimes, as I’m falling asleep, I have this incredible fantasy that being the new girl somewhere would bring all these great new things to me, like a decent guy or a new place to hang out with new people, and maybe I’d be happier. I’ll wake up the next day and realize that it’s kind of a naïve hope.

I have great friends here. I have people I care about and people who care about me. But something is missing, and I’m not quite sure what it is; the closest I’ve gotten to knowing is thinking that maybe I will have a better chance at everything elsewhere, and that I don’t get my fair chance here. But that might be giving myself too much credit. Jeez, I don’t know. Maybe I do just need to get out of here.

It would be a good time to get out; I need to find a job, and I need to pay my student loans. It might be easier to move for a job than have to wait for one. But I’m not sure I’d be able to get out so soon. The lease at this house runs out in August, but honestly — my heart belongs in this town. In this neighborhood. I can’t seem to believe that maybe I’m lying to myself about it.

Or maybe I’m just getting anxious because I am graduating soon and there are a lot of decisions to make. Even though I know just the things that would make me happy — you see, I set my heart on things and it’s tough to let go when those things don’t happen — I don’t see those things as happening. I don’t see that one person back in my life, I don’t see my name on that one desk in that one office, and I don’t see being able to live in that one place in that one neighborhood. This process of graduating and moving into a new stage of life is going to take the kind of flexibility and tolerance for a lack of stability that I have never before faced, but it’s going to have to happen at some point.

I’m hoping that Boulder will still be the place for me a few weeks into May. But I know that, up until then, I’ll get that pang to get out of here. For now, I might just have to ignore it. And maybe it’ll fade away by then.