Are We There Yet?
The thing that no one tells you about going to study abroad is that you leave months before you ever get onto your plane. This entire semester has been one giant ticking clock, a digital bomb counting down slowly to D-Day…only in this case D stands for Denial of leaving and Destination Ireland and avoiding Discussing the fact that with some of your friends, these last few months will be the last time you have together.
The end of every semester at school is always a little rough. You go from seeing people every day, from knowing their favorite brand of cereal when they wake up and going out to dinners with them every night and buying your shampoo together at Wegmans, to suddenly going home and putting (if your lucky) miles and minutes between you or (if you’re unlucky) states or oceans or countries. You spend your time at college building up a support network and then at the end of each break you cut yourself loose from it, disappear off the grid. Many of my friends were seniors this semester. Some of them were graduating. This meant that at the end of Fall semester, instead of wishing my friends happy holidays and nice breaks with their family, I was suddenly wishing them nice lives and good luck with their future jobs and endeavors.
I’ve spent the last three years carving out a place for myself at Cornell where I’m finally comfortable. However, to me this means that it’s time to leave, at least for a while. I do the most personal growing when I’m awkward, unsure, out of my comfort zone. Going to Ireland will accomplish all those things.
Still, it’s scary. I’m not sure if that’s emphasized enough. People are so busy reassuring you how wonderful it’s going to be that sometimes it feels like they don’t really listen to your fears. I know that when I get there, when my flight lands on the runway in Dublin, when I change all my clocks to six hours again and haul my 2.5 suitcases off of baggage claim, maybe it will feel a little bit more manageable to me, but right now I’m terrified that when I return everything I’ve worked to build in the last three years will have changed.
Going abroad is a choice you make for yourself. I’m glad I’m doing it, but sometimes I wish that it hadn’t been up to me. During my Cornell career, I had a very brief foray into the world of women’s rugby. It’s a hardcore sport, where you’re made to follow the most counterintuitive instincts. See a big girl running at you? Do you run away? No! Instead you run straight at her, without any kind of padding, get low, and attempt to take her down. While at one particularly unsuccessful tackling practice, I was eyeing the girl I was partnered up who was twice my size, and thinking to myself, “Wow, I really only have myself to blame.” About five seconds later I was on my back looking up at the ceiling of the auditorium in Bartel hall.
Sometimes going abroad feels kind of like that. Am I choosing to stay safe and happy in an environment I’ve already figured out with friends I know and places I can find? No! Instead, I’m volunteering to go to another country, directly enroll into a 20,000 person school, and start all over again. The anticipation is like the slow climb up a roller coaster before the first drop, only this anticipation lasts for months and requires you to still go through the motions of homework and dinner dates and clubs and activities.
We’re supposed to give you an honest glimpse into what we’re feeling before we leave. Honestly? I’m excited to be going, sad to be leaving, worried about packing, but mostly, I’m terrified about starting over.