So long, farewell…

It has been two weeks and still I can’t decide how to write a final blog post for my trip.  What could possibly be enough?  What could do justice to this experience? 

I’ve decided to go back to this collection of thoughts I spilled out in the airport.  Describing how I felt then is as honest as I can be, and honesty has been one of my biggest goals for this blog.  I was a bundle of emotions.  I always am when I know I’m in the midst of a big change.  For me, those are the moments I have to write. 

Here I am in the Warsaw airport.  And it’s hitting me.  It’s hitting me like I knew it would, but in a way I couldn’t anticipate.

I have no right to be sad.  I get to spend the next nine days traveling with my boyfriend and his sister.  And God, I am so excited to see them in a few hours.  It adds so much to this mess of emotions.

But then I see the photos my host mom tagged me in on Facebook.  And I realize that is how I will be seeing my roommate, friends, and host family from now on.  Through a little screen.

I go to order my food and my instinct is to say “bonjour,” but I cut myself short and say hello instead.  My French is useless here.

I realize with a pang that my French is only going to get worse until the next time, if and when, I live in France.  I want to write this whole blog in French, I want to hear the bubbling vowels come out of mouths all around me.

I pick Paul’s for lunch out of some sad nostalgia.  I only ever eat it in airports, and I almost never ate it when I was actually in France.

I sort of want to cry, partially out of relief that I finally made it here.  It was a hairy travel morning to say the least.  But it’s not sadness or stress that gives me that feeling, it’s just feeling so many emotions at once.  I bet I’ll cry when I see Sam.

I have to cling onto and breathe into the one emotion that’s the most important.  The one that I feel the most deep, deep down; gratitude.

I hold onto it like a life raft and it pulls me up like a balloon.

I’m grateful for the chance to spend four months in Paris.  Finances, safety, college credit all come into play and could’ve ruined my plans.  In a different situation, time period, with a different major, it might not have been possible.

I’m thankful for parents who were excited for me since the idea arose.  Come to think of it I don’t remember ever really asking, because I knew what the answer would be.

I’m thankful for host parents and siblings who made me feel at home in the simplest and most meaningful ways: calling us “mes filles” (my girls), assuring us no matter what happens “il y a toujours une solution” (there is always a solution), and never missing a chance to joke around with us.

I’m thankful to have a roommate who not only did I get along with, but who after four months I consider one of my closest friends.  Simple as that.

I’m thankful for every friend I made in my program, for staff who helped us endlessly, for kind professors, and for smiling classmates.

I’m thankful that I get to go home to so many people I love.  People who shared in my excitement, even though coming here meant I’d be away from them.

I’m thankful home, both in Columbus and Pittsburgh, is a place I look forward to going back to.

I’m thankful for the challenges, the lessons, and the joys that France brought me.  I may have opted out of getting a tattoo, but Paris will have its name stamped on my heart.

I could go on and on, but for me gratefulness is kind of like a prayer or meditation, and sometimes when you pray it’s better to just be quiet.  Because otherwise my brain and my heart may burst.  And I need those to carry me through my next journey.