My coworkers are lovely.

For all the ire it draws, winter weather rejuvenates and enlivens me every year. There’s something comforting about the possibility that I could peer out my window one moment and everything will be different, obscured in a curtain of swirling Midwestern mayhem. An ice storm is set to hit this evening and the anticipation is almost intoxicating — I want to see and feel my world changing. That’s how I feel about life right now, too. It’s changing, but not yet a swirl; it’s a slow, delightfully dizzying spin.

Two weeks ago I got into my top-choice law school. I heard the news as I walked to my job from an off-site work meeting, happy tears clinging to my frozen skin in the morning cold. I don’t think they’ve completely melted; I’m still in disbelief I got in.

Part of me is greedy for all the changes the next few months will bring; I wish they could swirl in like the snow and rain, blinding what was visible, familiar and comfortable. I love my job, my apartment, my volunteer work and my friends in Des Moines, but every day, there are little reminders that it’s time to leave — and that’s OK. My impatience is confirmation that I’m moving on to something that’s right for me, that’s more challenging while fitting into my existing advocacy goals.

The dizzying spin will come. Next month I’m flying to Michigan for a school visit, and I’m still waiting on my admission packet from my No. 1 choice. A school decision, an apartment search, a trip to Europe and a major move await me in the next seven months. I’ll be readjusting to life as a full-time student after nearly three years of full-time nonprofit work.

But as freezing rain falls outside, blurring the view I know so well after two years in Des Moines, I remind myself to try and be still — after all, I can still feel the slow, delightfully dizzying spin.