The Countdown: Only Two Days to Home!

 It feels like I'm living in some sort of bizarro land straight out of the Twilight Zone.

 What do you mean all of my amazing new friends are leaving the country to return to their respective corners of the globe? What do you mean I'm not going to be here much longer to enjoy the characteristically stormy English weather? What do you mean I have to somehow find a way to cram the past six months of my life into just two suitcases? What do you mean I'll soon have to adapt myself once again to life at home and *gasp*... go back to calling chips 'fries' again?! 

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY LIFE??? I DON'T UNDERSTAND IT.

 SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!!!

    It's a very surreal world I'm inhabiting right now. I constantly find myself caught between two worlds of thought as I split my time either obsessing over what to do with my last hours in dreary, wonderful England or worrying over what on Earth I'm going to do with myself over the summer to stay sane and get ready for my senior year of undergrad. It's nearly time to leave behind the new life that I've worked so hard to fashion myself over the last six months as well as to the host of amazing people I've met and formed close relationships with... All that I've grown used to calling 'mine' and 'my home.' Soon I'll no longer be able to play the role of the free-spirited study abroad student who spends most of her free time travelling across England and Europe on spur-of-the-moment whims, or who walks about the green hills of the beautiful countryside, often ending her evenings at the local pub surrounded by people from all over the world. In only two days this dream that's not a dream will be over and I'll make my return to the dusky golden hills of the valley I call my home, with its wide, swift river running at its bottom, mountains looming in the distance and craggy hills covered in mist and evergreens literally just around the river bend. Visions of rocky fields and cloudless blue skies crowd my mind as I look out through a raindrop spattered window and the fields of endless green below. It's enough of a juxtaposition to make any girl's head spin.

      At some point in my journey across the Atlantic, I'll transform back into the girl with a thousand and one dreams and return to the life that comes complete with a wonderful family always close at hand to provide advice and comfort and care. How different from the life I've led for these last months, relying on myself and moving about the world as a daughter far removed from her family, her home, and everything else that was familiar. But all that's changed now. Now there are so many different, strange things that have also entered the realm of what I consider to be familiar: New places, new friends, new pastimes, new everything. And just as this process of leave-taking begins, I know another of a similar nature, although one on a much grander scale, is just around the corner. With the close of this summer and the following academic year, I'll graduate with some sort of bachelor's degree in some sort of subject with hopefully some sort of idea in mind as to what I'm going to do afterwards and, once again, it will mean goodbye friends, goodbye family, hello to the unknown and all-new-unfamiliar. Dear World, I hope to God you're going to play nice with me.
  Today I'll say goodbye to the closest friend I've made here. While she's been busy packing, I rose late and made a cup of tea, sitting down to the serious business of getting all introspective, using my keyboard as a means to vent my college-girl identity frustrations. Hellooo, first world problems! But don't worry; the ranting can't conceivably last much longer, as once my friend's work is done we're to meet up and go on our last jaunt about campus and beyond... exploring hidden train tunnels and walking about muddy fields as long as we can before she's obliged to hit the tarmac and say goodbye to England for who knows how long. The prospect of this possibly farewell forever to the person who was my constant travel companion and comrade in arms throughout this roller coaster of an experience is, needless to say, a scary one. We've become pretty tight friends through the thick and thin of it and have been each other's main contact for months, so I expect disengaging will feel a bit like suddenly having one less arm to face the world with. I know the sensation probably won't last for all eternity and that we'll move on and eventually start to settle back into our normal lives... But, surprisingly, it's not the prospect of this period of inevitable transition that unsettles me. 
  It's the fact that there's a distinct possibility that I will just fall back into my old routines, my old thoughts, my old friend groups simply because they are comfortable, familiar, and, above all, ridiculously easy to return to. But I already know that the above scenario is the absolute last thing I want to do after all the time I've been away discovering what I like, who I like, and who I want to be. I want to take what I've learned back with me and use it to gradually change what it is about my life and myself that no longer suits the sort of roads I now see myself travelling. It's a tall order, I know, and one that will certainly take a hell of a lot of work. But hey, I at least now know that no matter what challenges there are that present a threat to my aspirations-of-almost-always-entirely-epic-proportions, I know I can deal.
    I'm a pretty stubborn girl and I'm pretty damn determined to fill what free time I have this summer to the brim with as many good things as I can. I fully intend to proceed much the same way with my last year at college, and there are so many possibilities and opportunities for me to pursue, I'm glad I at least now have a clearer perspective on what it is I want and need to move forward. So I'll hug my friends goodbye as tightly as they'll let me, spend the night reading in the airport, and board the plane thinking of possibilities and the kind of doors that start to open even while others begin to close. Because that's all this really is. It's not a door that's closing to me forever or, even if it is, it's only one in the face of a hundred others that are newly set to swinging on their hinges. I now know I have the ability to successfully make a new life for myself, complete with people I care about and things that get me excited about living no matter where I am in the world, and that's something no one's going to be able to take from me. I've made my own brand of happiness here simply based on my own initiative and by actually having the sense to invite people to become a part of it. And although I'm aware I can't take the place or the people back with me,  I can definitely carry all of the wonderful memories and everything I've learned from the experience home and make damned good use of it... which is precisely what I intend to do.

      So goodbye-for-now new friends turned old, my unfamiliar turned familiar home, green fields, constant rain, that spotted horse I always feed an apple to every time I pass along the road, England, Europe, constant world travel, weekly wanderings, and everything that goes along with you. But don't worry; this is anything but a permanent farewell.

 I'll be seeing you, I promise.

Lots of love and see you soon,

Torey