For the last time, I will write my first story. For the last three-plus years, I have looked out my window and decided what I thought the Oswego community deserved to hear about.

The window has changed and so have I. It started as a wide, spacious window that stared directly upon a wall, though if I turned to the right angle and squinted my eyes, I could see the beautiful sun setting over the lake. Whom I shared this window has changed as well. One roommate leads to another and eventually leads to just me. To borrow a line from Virginia Woolf, “I finally have a room of one’s own.”

Through this window is a threshold. That may seem like a deep philosophical statement, and it very well might be, but I am referring quite literally to a strange two-foot-wide space between my window and the outside of the house. It is as if the landlord thought about building a closed porch, but gave up halfway through. Somehow, it makes the three planes of immovable glass that prevents direct sunlight and a direct passage outside in the case of emergency acceptable. It’s the quirks like this that I have come to embrace.

Turning to my left, I eye a bottle of Scotch—Talisker 18-year, to be exact, for all the Scotch snobs out there (I sure hope there are some). From the shroud of my computer, I am able to lie and pretend it is a much more reasonable time for a tumbler of Scotch than it actually is. Creative liberties I guess, or maybe it’s a sign that I’m an adult and if I want a small tumbler of Scotch at a time of the day that will remain unnamed, I am allowed.

While getting gas this morning, I saw a man buy a six-pack of Natural Ice. Or was it Natural Light? Or was it the new Budweiser Black Crown—if you did not know about it be prepared for a flood of advertising to be jammed down your throat. I always said that if the big beer companies spent less on advertising and more on quality ingredients to produce a good product, the world would be a much better place, but that is an argument for another day. One day I hope to make that argument, but maybe I won’t. It’s freedoms like this that I have come to embrace.

So for my final time, I will bid you welcome. The beginning of one final go around before I hit the real world, the world where I don’t consider my “early day” to begin at 3 p.m., the world that would judge me for buying a six-pack of beer before noon (though to be fair, I would still judge myself about that), the world where I will eventually be the one helping someone plow their driveway. It’s a progression like this that I have come to embrace.