I'm five days away from leaving.
That statement is incredible to me for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that this time last week I was still hoping and praying and willing my visa into existence. Now, the visa is safely tucked away in my passport; the infamous Orange Monster (my oversized and oh-so-florescent suitcase) is nearly packed; my viola has been repaired, restrung, and re-housed. Good raincoats and new work dresses have been bought, tailored, stacked, and rolled. Documents are still being gathered and notarized. Flights, rebooked. Friends, phoned for the last time Stateside. Contacts lenses, rush shipped (oops).
None of this is terribly new. After all, this is not the first time I've moved overseas, and I'm fairly certain it won't be the last. I'm familiar with the combination of excitement and stress and anticipation and worry of international travel. I recognize that dull nagging fear that I'll forget my boarding pass, my wallet, or my viola somewhere between home, the car, Hartsfield-Jackson, and my Belgian residence (still to be determined; life is nothing but a grand, last-minute adventure).
I feel the way I always before I go abroad: that sense that everything matters, that everything is a last: last case of Coke Zero, last dinner at the hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant around the corner, last soggy bike ride to Starbucks, last scotch-and-ice-cream night watching The Good Wife, last perfectly-cooked culinary masterpiece, last stroll around Little Five Points, last movie at the high school movie theater, last run on the cracking sidewalks that line the buzzy suburban streets near my house. If this summer of pleasure reading and sleeping in and pastimes to pass the time was a dreamy haze, all these lasts are a caffeine shot to the brain: colors leap out, textures linger, smells haunt, words exchanged matter more than ever before. Temporal context changes everything's relative importance. You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.
And yet, it's the gone-ness that makes everything fascinating. It's like gifts: I've never decided whether it's more fun to put Scotch tape on a present, watching it become whole and secure and stuck, or to watch tape slowly unpeel, losing its stickiness, upsetting and maybe tearing the wrapping, and revealing an unknown, exciting-but-potentially-disappointing gift. Regardless of my preference, however, now it's time to un-adhere again, to pull off and pull up and nervously anticipate what I'll find when I pull Belgium's wrapping back.
I don't know where I'll be living this time next week, and I don't know how I'm going to procure a scooter, and I don't know how my classes at ULB will be (hopefully better than my interactions with mes chers fonctionnaires at the Admissions Office), and I don't know what my internship will look like, if it looks like anything. Nevertheless, I am five days away from leaving and I am twenty-two days away from turning twenty-three. It's time to wake up, smell the coffee, and start unwrapping this new, incredible present.
That statement is incredible to me for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that this time last week I was still hoping and praying and willing my visa into existence. Now, the visa is safely tucked away in my passport; the infamous Orange Monster (my oversized and oh-so-florescent suitcase) is nearly packed; my viola has been repaired, restrung, and re-housed. Good raincoats and new work dresses have been bought, tailored, stacked, and rolled. Documents are still being gathered and notarized. Flights, rebooked. Friends, phoned for the last time Stateside. Contacts lenses, rush shipped (oops).
None of this is terribly new. After all, this is not the first time I've moved overseas, and I'm fairly certain it won't be the last. I'm familiar with the combination of excitement and stress and anticipation and worry of international travel. I recognize that dull nagging fear that I'll forget my boarding pass, my wallet, or my viola somewhere between home, the car, Hartsfield-Jackson, and my Belgian residence (still to be determined; life is nothing but a grand, last-minute adventure).
I feel the way I always before I go abroad: that sense that everything matters, that everything is a last: last case of Coke Zero, last dinner at the hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant around the corner, last soggy bike ride to Starbucks, last scotch-and-ice-cream night watching The Good Wife, last perfectly-cooked culinary masterpiece, last stroll around Little Five Points, last movie at the high school movie theater, last run on the cracking sidewalks that line the buzzy suburban streets near my house. If this summer of pleasure reading and sleeping in and pastimes to pass the time was a dreamy haze, all these lasts are a caffeine shot to the brain: colors leap out, textures linger, smells haunt, words exchanged matter more than ever before. Temporal context changes everything's relative importance. You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.
And yet, it's the gone-ness that makes everything fascinating. It's like gifts: I've never decided whether it's more fun to put Scotch tape on a present, watching it become whole and secure and stuck, or to watch tape slowly unpeel, losing its stickiness, upsetting and maybe tearing the wrapping, and revealing an unknown, exciting-but-potentially-disappointing gift. Regardless of my preference, however, now it's time to un-adhere again, to pull off and pull up and nervously anticipate what I'll find when I pull Belgium's wrapping back.
I don't know where I'll be living this time next week, and I don't know how I'm going to procure a scooter, and I don't know how my classes at ULB will be (hopefully better than my interactions with mes chers fonctionnaires at the Admissions Office), and I don't know what my internship will look like, if it looks like anything. Nevertheless, I am five days away from leaving and I am twenty-two days away from turning twenty-three. It's time to wake up, smell the coffee, and start unwrapping this new, incredible present.
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