What Could Have Been

So I called the Gator ticket office and asked them what's going to happen with my student football tickets considering that I'm not a student anymore. I was told that I have to go to the stadium's Gate 13 and fill out some paper and that my money will be refunded. I couldn't drive my car to campus because I don't have a parking decal, and I didn't want to pay to park in the Reitz garage, so I decided to take the bus for old time's sake. Since it was such a nice afternoon, I thought it would be fun to just hang out on campus, under a tree, and read.

As I was getting all my stuff together, I started getting flashbacks and flash-forwards. For the past four years, I followed these steps:

1. Wake up, get dressed, brush teeth, etc...
2. Pack books
3. Pack snacks
4. Fill waterbottle
5. Find good playlist on iPod
6. Check to make sure I have Gator1 so I could ride the bus
7. Walk to bus stop, get on bus, ride bus, get off at Rawlings
8. Walk to destination

As I was doing these things this afternoon, it felt as if I was still an undergrad and that graduation was a ways away. Yet, at the same time, I was thinking that I would have been doing these things had I decided to stay in school. It was like I was in some space-time continuoum where I was re-living the past but experiencing what could have been my future. Goodness.

Being on campus felt really weird. It seemed like just yesterday I was a freshman. Campus still looks the same, although it seems smaller now than 4 years ago. Nothing has really changed. (Well, except the Reitz food court... there's a Cheeburger Cheeburger where Wendy's was!). I don't know if anyone else is feeling weird about post-grad life. Maybe I am especially so because I was supposed to be in school. I had the whole summer to think about coming back and what it was going to be like to be back at UF, but then, all of a sudden, everything changed. Maybe if I had all summer to realize that I wasn't going back I would feel more detached to UF.