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A new apartment with girls I really like. It's something I've been waiting months for. To be out of my house, on my own.

My room is decorated -- pink and orange everywhere, Columbia pennant on the wall, American Girl doll sitting next to my desk. My books, including quite a few Core hits, are on my bookshelf. My Ikea furniture is put together, thanks to a lot of help from my new roommates.

And yet. It hardly feels like home.

I spent four years at Columbia and it became my home--by walking across College Walk at 4 a.m. through the Christmas (um, holiday)-lighted trees or through the sprinklers, staring at the lit Butler; getting my heels stuck in the cobblestones that line the campus; recognizing and waving to people as I walked to class. I don't have that here yet.

And I'm sure I will. I will stay in for Shabbos. I will meet new people. I will make new friends. I will be happy here. But it's just so hard, so daunting and scary, to have to start that all over again. (And I've never been good at the big social scenes, making new friends sort of thing.)

I feel like I've been in transition ever since graduation. A summer internship that I kept on hoping would turn into a job I didn't actually want. A job I like but am not passionate about. An application pending for a graduate school with a minuscule acceptance rate.

I just want to settle down. I want to know what I want. I want to know what the future holds. I want it to be that easy. To know what I need to do and just be able to do it. To know where I want to be 10 years from now. To know where I want to be now.