I graduated from Berkeley in May. It is now the end of August, and the summer is coming to a graceful close. For the first time in my life, I won’t be returning to school in the fall. It’s really unsettling to think that I can actually relax — that there won’t be any papers, lectures, 3 a.m. panic attacks over unfinished paragraphs, study guides, group projects, arguments over the specifics of a reading — it’s over. And I guess I was supposed to relax this summer.

In hindsight, I really did maximize my freedom. I came home without knowing the city I grew up in because I always had my nose buried deep in books during high school. Now, I feel as though this city and I may have moved far past acquaintances. I came home and realized that I didn’t have any real friends who live nearby, again, a consequence of my priorities in high school. Three months later, I can say with confidence that I’ve made some incredible life-long friends here. I’ve watched hours of TV, danced so much that my shoes wore out, slept in, and sometimes did absolutely nothing.

*Matt Bautista,* Leo Carillo State Park, August 2019.

*Brook,* Leo Carillo State Park, August 2019.

This period between graduation and “life”, I suppose, is a transition. At least, that’s what everyone keeps calling it. I don’t know if i feel comfortable compartmentalizing each of the moments in my life, but I do know that the past few months have been uncomfortable. I was supposed to relax, after all, I have been studying my entire life to get to this point. And it may have seemed as though I was relaxing — what with all the friends, the road trips, the laughing, the jumping in the ocean — but I was certainly not relaxing. The stress is from uncertainty, that’s for sure. But it’s also linked in part to my own expectations of myself. I have been an over-achiever my entire existence, so “relax” has never really been a word in my vocabulary. I may have been more relaxed in periods of extreme stress than I am now. I am craving a challenge; something that will keep me up at night and consume my every thought and action. I am craving a problem that requires solving and a project that I spend hundreds of hours working on. I just don’t think I like relaxing very much, and so I’m in anguish over it, and yet paralyzed at the same time.

I never thought I’d genuinely say or mean this, but I do miss Berkeley. I miss how hard it was. I miss the feeling of finally understanding a really difficult concept or getting an A on a paper I felt proud of. As much as I complained over the past four years, I have to say that I now fully appreciate the difficulty of the place. I don’t think I’m cut out for transitions, but I am glad I allowed myself to transition. Without it, I may have longed for a break without really knowing what it feels like. But as the summer comes to an end, I realize that this transition may have been a challenge in disguise.