It all comes down to you...

I've spent the last few days getting my life in order.

The corn has grown above my head, the sun sets earlier each evening, and there is a decided chill in the air during the dead of night. Everything is pointing to the one sure thing in life: time is creeping forward. Summer is coming to a close.

With the end of the season ticking ever closer, I've started my ritualistic packing and organizing. Decisions must be made, what to take and what to leave. Arrangements must be made, the big move in date set. Summer ends, school begins. The next new chapter of life.

Last week I wasn't stressed about the subject. Far from it...I was excited, relaxed and really looking forward to being back in Toronto, having my new normal life back. The butterflies that used to come on when I started planning my new year were nowhere to be found, and truth be told I enjoyed it. For the first time, I felt no unease about just how things would go, what kind of a year I'd have.

But over the last few days, my carefree mood darkened. I started realizing how much of a change was coming, how different things were about to be again.

I started to see the end of the line.

Come September I'll be going into my fourth and final year of university. It's hard to imagine something that you've chosen, planned for, dedicated yourself to, lived, ate and slept - coming to a close. Yet it is, or will be. In eight months I will be a university graduate.

Of course, it has the ring of accomplishment to it, the knowledge that you've succeeded in your field of study and have successfully navigated another phase of your life. I'm proud of what I've done so far, and I hope that this final year will be the crowning achievement, the culmination of my four years of study.

But...there's so much more I feel like I have to do, or at least want to.

Life as a student is truly amazing. Yes, there is responsibility (at least, for me), but there is the overwhelming sense that anything is possible. During the past three years, I've discovered more about myself, learned who I really am and experienced more life than I did in the 17 years before.

But again, when I think that it's coming to a close, I feel like there are so many things still left to do.

It all comes down to safety. As a student, you have a great safety net surrounding your life; you're young, learning, experimenting. There is no 9 to 5 job you have to attend every day. Nights can drag until 4 a.m. with little consequence to your life. Days can be spent thinking, or at least attempting to, solving the riddles of life.

Of course, many people see it differently. On having this conversation with a friend, she turned the inflection of the thought on its head. "Exactly, you're finished university in eight months!" she said with enthusiasm and sincerity. "And there's so much more you can do once you graduate!"

She's right, to an extent. It's true that just because I'm going to be finished school doesn't mean I have achieved the highest peaks of my life. There are years and years (and hopefully a few more after that) for me to continue to explore, to live.

I can't even put my finger on what exactly it is I feel I have yet to do. At university, I suppose I would argue I haven't had the 'American college' experience; there are no meanderings through the quad, no school spirit or community. Unlike a Bret Easton Ellis novel, we're not all doing copious amounts of drugs and constantly sleeping with each other...not that that would make for the most well-rounded university experience.

I guess a lot of it comes down to being 'involved.' I've passed three years of my life at university already, yet I still feel on the outside of the organizational sphere. I never got into councils, organizations, action groups...but then a lot of it wasn't really for me to begin with...

Also, thinking of leaving university in many ways makes me feel I'm loosing my gay safety net. It's one thing to think I'll figure out the whole gay thing during school, where there are people my age experiencing the same things, where there is a student group with an open door I could always force myself through. Once I graduate, that all evaporates...and I become one gay against the world. But, since I haven't really figured it out after three years of the same thing, maybe a change would be for the better after all.

So here's to eight more months of the best job of my life.

So far.