As I waved goodbye to the woman who had taken care of my brother, my sister, and I for over a decade for the last time in a long while, I called out jokingly, "But Jean! Who is going to watch us?" My sister Cara, 21, rolled her eyes and chuckled, Nick, 16 did one of his much-practiced "wooooow Sam"s (kids these days) and I, almost 24, stood there waving, wondering if I was really kidding after all. Jean had been coming to clean our house every Wednesday--she had two children of her own, 11 and 3, and hadn't "babysat" us in over 8 years. But something in me that day wanted her to stay and cook us dinner, tell Cara to do her homework (Cara's now finished her associate's and on to medical technician school) and put Nicky to bed (Nick will be a Junior in high school this fall).

I stared at our cluttered foyer as her minivan pulled out of the driveway. All of the stuff I'd decided to take to my new apartment sat waiting to be packed into the car. Posters had graduated to framed pictures, and silly signs and accessories were mostly gone. This was grad school. Even now, sitting in that new apartment, reading over the syllabi for my graduate classes, I wonder if this is how it's supposed to feel. They say the unexamined life is not worth living. But sometimes all this analysis gets exhausting.

It's not that cooking for myself and doing my own laundry is daunting--it's not, hell why do you think my parents let me live home for so long? I did my fair share of chores. It's the expectation that now I would have to produce. No, not reproduce. I mean produce results. Make that 55 thousand dollar loan into something. I know it's not for another year at least but it seems that for every person that loves what they do every day, there are more who despise it. I continue to be determined not to be that person in the longrun. But who can I be in the meantime?