I walked in to a drugstore the other day to buy a tube of toothpaste. And while it is incredible that I have managed to conserve my minty-fresh arctic blast tooth scrub for ten months without sacrificing oral hygiene, I was more amazed by how disturbed I felt while making the purchase.

I have now been home for a full week and must admit I am a bit edgy about my newly anointed Craigslist-free lifestyle. To go to the movies I needn’t list or search, I can call a friend or ask my sister. Errands are no longer reliant on the Craigslist marketplace and I don’t have to budget myself so strictly either. As for roommates, let’s just say my parents and sister are a lot easier to live with than some of the strange people I have shared space with recently.

Still, I feel guilty and strange.

Buying toothpaste from an actual store feels like cheating. It’s ordinary and now, again, I am ordinary too. I am back to the normal way of life and in many ways its disheartening.

At times I have found myself cruising Craigslist, looking for excitement. I even responded to a poster looking to have his car driven to Tennessee, though I haven’t heard. And while it is nice not living out of one large duffle bag anymore, life on the road, with its unplanned excitement, will be missed.

Over the past ten months Craigslist has allowed me to do things I never imagined doing. I worked five jobs (live-in nanny, street canvasser, furniture salesman and two server jobs) and experienced three different cities in vastly different ways. I have gone sailing, hunting and snowshoeing by way of the site. I had Thanksgiving with strangers and sat in dark theaters with a variety of characters. I went on a hike with a girl who uses casual encounters to enjoy guilt-free sex. I have driven cross-country and back with Craigslist co-pilots and experienced diverse people with differing opinions along the way.

It would be a lie to say the site didn’t fail me occasionally. In Savannah I caved and bought toilet paper and struggled to scrape enough money together—I ended up completing the project with an extra $250. But to judge my entire project by the occasional disappointment would be a complete misunderstanding of my year and the experience.

The reason Craigslist is so fascinating to me and to many others is because of the very real possibilities the site produces. It truly enables and invites all sorts of behaviors. You want to find a group to go hang gliding in the nude with, give it a shot. Looking for a person to give you a tour of a new city, post your request.

In some cases Craigslist will fail, but most of the time your hopes are made into a reality. One of the people I met off the site said something that stands out now, even more than when she said it. Ellen, as I called her on the blog, posted on Craigslist for people to meet up with during her short tour of Savannah. Her listing, she said, “Allowed me to really look at myself.”

Craigslist is raw. The design is raw, the intentions are raw and the users are raw. It is that unfettered roughness that allowed me a chance at self-discovery.

And so although I write this final post from the exact place I sat writing my first post, I close this entry, and this year, a changed man.

I have learned the value of patience and courage and how to balance the two. I have seen people with different backgrounds and developed an appreciation for my own.

Most of all, I have learned the value of taking the risks and enjoy their rewards, even if that means others don’t understand your intentions and few see its prize.

Thank you all for reading and actively taking part in my journey. I never expected people to care about this little project and I consider this blog a tremendous success if only one person got joy out of reading my writing. If any developments on further opportunities to write become available I will make them known here. In the meantime, feel free to email me Jasonspaul@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @Jasonspaul

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