Airport Reflections

Well, here I am at Sea-Tac airport, preparing to fly back to Long Beach and realizing that I am less than one full week away from my flight to Dublin. Sitting here with my Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino (the first one of the season that the Sea-Tac Starbucks has made, no less!) and quietly observing the people around me at the gate, it would be so easy to romanticize myself as a naive but hopeful young heroine, filled with hope and excitement and even a little trepidation as I contemplate my upcoming travels and the promise of self-discovery...

But let's face it: real life is a bit more messy than that. That isn't to say that I'm not feeling all the things I just mentioned, but those emotions alone paint such an incomplete picture of all I've experienced within the past few days and even the past few hours. First of all, this week was utterly insane in terms of my schedule. Despite the fact that I wasn't in class, my days were nonetheless grueling as I balanced packing, working for the Campus Visit Program, and training for my new job at the Center for Writing, Learning, and Teaching. Although I finished each day exhausted, I had a blast with it. Getting to know the CWLT staff through informal conversation and planned exercises alike, I find myself glad to realize that even after being at Puget Sound for two years I can still meet new people and forge meaningful friendships with them. Working at the CVP office, by contrast, cemented some of the bonds I've already created here. Back at the beginning of summer, there's no way I could have anticipated that some of my co-workers would wander the streets of Tacoma helping me recover my phone or spend a Monday evening shooting SIGs and eating frozen yogurt with me.

In all that was keeping me busy, though, I devoted alarmingly little time to bidding farewell to old and new friends alike. I had been looking forward to having an extra week up here to visit everyone before I left so that I wouldn't have to go without seeing them for six months (or, in the case of some, a full year). However, I didn't realize how that contact would complicate my goodbyes: the benefit of seeing my friends one last time before I departed for California came at the cost of addressing them face-to-face as I left, forcing me once again to confront the enormity of what I am doing this semester. Furthermore, owing to some flight complications late in the week, I had even less time for this than I anticipated. As such, many of my goodbyes felt disappointingly abrupt: for one friend, a three-minute speech was reduced to a quick hug before class; for another, scheduling conflicts meant cutting out our last meeting altogether.

One of the many reasons I chose to study abroad is because I knew it was time to expand my proverbial horizons and remind myself that there is more to life--and the world--than Puget Sound alone. Being here for these past few days, however, I have come to remember all over again just how much the people and community here do mean to me. Now that the parting hugs (and hopefully the accompanying tears) are done, I am once again seeing the positive side: I have not only the prospect of a great semester before me, but also a solid group of friends and opportunities waiting with open arms when I return.

My plane is about to board, so I should probably sign off soon. If this were the idealistic movie scenario I described earlier, I would stride confidently down the ramp onto the plane, slide into my seat next to an incredibly attractive man, and begin reading the latest best-seller. As it is, I'm pretty sure the film industry hasn't heard about my life, because my travel experiences run more along the lines of kicking my own shoe across the airport gate, sitting next to overly flirtatious young men while sick, and, as of yesterday, engaging in hysterical phone-tag marathons between Jetblue and my father as my friend swats a bee out of her apartment with a Swiffer mop. This time around, I'm settling for a compromise: I'm a little nervous, a little homesick, but I'll be damned if I'm not thrilled out of my mind for all that lies ahead!