How do you measure a year?

Tomorrow is my one-year anniversary at the lab. I don't really know what to think of that. Is that a long time? Sometimes it feels like it, especially when I think back to my first few days here.

I remember my dad and I setting off for Long Island, him pulling a U-Haul trailer behind his van, me following in my Escort. Not 10 minutes later, I watch the doors of that trailer pop open and my wicker laundry basket full of sheets teeter and totter until it smashes onto I-94. Pulled off on the shoulder, I see my dad running back to salvage what he can in morning traffic. I remember driving quietly. Of course, there was no one I could talk to in the passenger seat, but even if there was, I don't think I would have said much; It's that kind of nervousness where the sounds of the radio float right through your ears and you can drive for miles without remembering a thing you passed.

I-80 in Jersey, exit 62, Abbey's apartment: I remember breathing again as we make the turnoff. It's the one familiar part of the trip. Abbey drives and Mason and Adam follow, increasing our caravan size to three. We cross the George Washington Bridge and I stare at the skyline, a sight that still amazes me. I hope it always will. Second bridge, the Throng's Neck: we stop suddenly just before the entrance. In the review mirror, my dad is waving around the EZpass borrowed from Mason. Like he's trying to squash a fly, he's pounding the rectangular device all around the inside of the windshield and then out the open window. He's panicking, and we're panicking because we can do nothing but sit and watch, and the toll gate remains closed. Finally, a guard walks over and we continue. We try to beat the sunset as we head down 347, but dark clouds rolling in quickly start to kill the light. The closer we get, the more I examine the surroundings, because that Chinese restaurant isn't just a random shop, it's going to be part of my new neighborhood.

As we pull into the apartment complex, it starts to rain. It's humid and hot, but the lights work in my bare, echoing apartment. The landlord has left the keys on the kitchen counter like he said he would. Raining turns to pouring as we start moving the numerous boxes up the stairs and plop them in any available free space. We're finally finished and drenched, and my helpers head back to Jersey before it gets too late. It's Thursday, and they have to work tomorrow. My dad and I get food at a Mexican restaurant down the street, the closest, open place either of us can remember from the ride in. I order a burrito. Too exhausted to put together any sort of furniture, I sleep on my mattress and my dad sleeps on the bed box. I remember these things in snippets, like they are all individual photos. I feel like they should be 4x6s in an album on my shelf, things that happened a long time ago.

But this year has happened so quickly. In ways I still feel like the "new girl" here. So many people I haven't met, so many things I haven't seen. Memories from home are still fresh. Fireworks at Memorial Park, talking with friends at the kitchen table, my brother's music blaring through the house: all of these things that I haven't experienced in years seem like just a few months ago. Yet this is the longest I've spent in one location in a really long time. So I wonder if my time here, or wherever I end up in the future will ever seem just "long" or "short," or if it will forever be the strange mix of in-between.