Today, Im saying goodbye to this part of my life. This is the last day, that is my new normal. Tomorrow, everything is going to change again. Tomorrow, we are picking up my family from the JFK airport, NYC.
I feel so incredibly happy to have been able to do this. The good times and the bad times, all mix in to one year that I can without doubt call the MVP of my life so far. I am not who I was when I came, but at the dame time, I am exactly that.
The last week of school was celebrated with the Lawn Ceremony, where all the upcoming seniors aka my class get pulled onto the “senior lawn”, the lawn on campus that only the seniors are allowed on. It symbolizes the official transition from junior to senior. Then, the graduating seniors line up in one long line and the rest of the school in another. Then, you go through the line and hug every senior at the school, all of us. It takes a while, but at the end, everyone in the school has hugged every senior goodbye.
This was when it hit me, I am not coming back. I am leaving all this, and even when I visit, it will just never be exactly the same. It would be a blown out lie if I said this year has been a dance on roses, it took me what felt like an eternity to built what I had in the end, but what I had, because of all the people around me, ultimately felt like a twisted kind of perfection. I loved every day of it, and cherished every second of my last weeks. During lawn ceremony, I cried and cried out of love and gratefulness for all the people I have been lucky enough to get to know.
It has been bittersweet, seeing the seniors graduate and leave campus, taking my final exams, packing up my room, all the while watching the population on campus become smaller and smaller. I left campus two days after my last exam, so that I could spent some time just being with everyone close to me before I had to go. All the goodbyes I said the last few hours, were happy ones. I decided that no tears would run down my face this time, all these were going to be “goodbye-for-nows”. I am determined to come back to visit all my looooves again.
I packed up my whole room, and left on a Friday to go home to the my host family, the Marencos. It was odd, being my room for the year striped down to what it looked like before the chaos that was me and my roommates incredible mess.
My year is not over yet, but the afterparty has started.
Much love,
Your Jo
A Trip Across the Ocean 