The penultimate post

Since I've come home, life - in all of its to-do lists, color-coded schedules, and long-term agendas - has rushed forward to meet me.  In the spring, I'll need to start apartment-hunting.  On June 16, I'll graduate from college.  Two months later, I'll receive my white coat.

But I'll come to those bridges soon enough.  For now, a narrower focus will suffice.

Tomorrow marks two weeks since I arrived.  Two weeks.  And a week from then, I'll be moving back to Schenectady.  This is hard to believe.

Because I'm still in Galway

My bedroom door

Remember when I said I needed some time to be still?  Well, I found it.

My little nook

Whew.  And now I feel able to think a little more clearly.

Because my family's the bestest family

A few hours ago, I said goodbye to two friends who have become family.  Wow.  I thought I'd never have a reason to want to return to Galway...and then I met these two.  I'm going to miss them more than they know.

And then there's the whole community-family to which they introduced me.  Check this out: upon hearing that I needed a ride to the bus station, two (other) friends offered to drive me...all the way to Shannon.  Now, my flight leaves at 7 am...which means that they've offered to leave here at 2:30 am to get there by 4 am.  And then they're going to drive all the way back.  This, friends, is friendship, service, love...and it's crazy, but it's also true.

Because I found these as I was packing

It caught me off-guard, this little postcard.  I was holding a pair of pants, mid-fold...and had to stop and remember.

I bought this for you at Clonmacnoise, a monastery I saw on my trip to Dublin.  It's a Celtic cross; there are lots of them here, especially at the monasteries.  You'd appreciate the way the stories have all been carved in...so that anyone might see and understand.

After the trip, I tucked your postcard away, resolving to write the letter later so I could give it the proper attention.  I had the words already, though...words about Galway and being this far from Mum and my friends here and what I've learned to cook and med school classes and how I miss you, I miss you.

I was going to send it.  Would that still be appropriate?

Because it's important to be real

On some mornings, it hits like a wave.  A tidal wave.  Out of nowhere.

I hadn't cried for days.

For days, I'd been preoccupied with "lasts": my last weekend with dear friends, my last time at church, my last hug with this person or that person.  They're bittersweet, these "lasts".  Each one pulls me away from the ones I'll miss, yet nudges me toward those whom I've been missing all this time.  And it's simple physics, isn't it?  Two equal and opposite forces, battling it out...and I'd been motionless, pleasantly lost in the distraction of it all.

Because home can be complicated

Yesterday, in mentioning my mixed feelings about going home, I wasn't as complete as I could've been.  In describing all of that nervousness, I focused on thoughts of Union and ignored one important factor - something that, yesterday, was too intimidating to write.  Friends, writing something - the very act of molding the the raw idea into words and sentences - lends it weight.

Reality.

And this is the reality I avoided yesterday:

A few winters ago, right from the driver's seat

Home.

In which I remind myself about what matters

After the official end of term (which was the Friday before yesterday), the university gives students a week off before exams begin.  I call this the study week.

My upstairs neighbors call it the play-techno-music-that-shakes-the-walls-until-4-am week.

So on Thursday night, I braided my hair, slipped into bed, and thought, it would be nice if they would just go to bed so I could rest.  We all need to study.  Don't they know what really matters?

Normal

As a junior, I was really lucky in the campus housing lottery and landed myself a "dingle".  (For any non-college students reading this, that's a single student living in a double, a room meant for two).  I had more space than I knew how to use.

And this was just my side.

This arrangement, which came without the company of a roommate, did get lonely sometimes, but it also gave this introvert the privacy she treasures.  It had a thermostat just for me and a carpeted floor beneath my toes.  It was able to contain all of the family and friends who surprised me there, on two separate occasions, for my twenty-first birthday.  The two beds gave me the freedom to have sleepovers whenever I wanted.

But do you want to know the best thing about that room?

I had my own bathroom.

Fighting

The past few days have blurred together.  I think today is Wednesday.  My computer calendar agrees.

I remember that on Sunday night, I couldn't sleep.  I stole catnaps here and there and kept the music on.  (Please keep sending music.)  And since Sunday night, I've done nothing but sleep.  Why?  Well...my bed is safe.  My bed is warm.  No one dies in this safe, warm bed.

On Sunday night, I caught a few of my cousins on Skype, and we chatted some.  (They live all over the world, so someone was always online.)  The conversations weren't exactly cheery, obviously, but it still felt good to connect with them.  I know they love me.  I'm jealous that they got to fly to Bangalore from all over while I lay in bed on my left side and typed with my right hand...as if that might be enough.

Everything

If you're expecting another post about green hills and sheep, let me do you a favor and gently direct you away for now.

For those of you who haven't heard yet and are concerned, there's been a death in my family.

A few cousins and me.  The story goes that they used to put on plays and I wanted so badly to be involved...so they gave me the pink ribbons and let me run around.  Ladies and gentlemen, my family.

She's not in this photo, because I will cry if I have to see her face...but this is her home.  She is one of the most important people in my life.  I will not use the past tense, primarily because I'm not convinced that the past tense is necessary.  If you want more detail than this, ask.  And look, friends - I know this blog is supposed to be about my experience of being abroad, but this intrusion is now part of that experience.  So if you will, allow me a bit of flexibility, because things aren't following the rules I set out in August.

These words have been brewing since yesterday afternoon, when I crawled into my bed and decided not to leave until I was good and ready.

There's something about a hot shower...

My Endocrinology professor requires white coats for her labs.  I feel like I'm cheating, wearing this when my white coat ceremony isn't until August...but it does give me a thrill to see myself in it.  I'm choosing to view this as practice (yes, at wearing the coat.  August is mere months away, after all.)

Although I'm posting this now, I wrote it at noon, huddled warm in a library chair and dreaming of coffee.  It's been a tiring day.  (And to my Union pals: I have yet to find anything at the NUIG library that compares with the couch tubs in ours.  I never thought I'd miss the library - that's a laugh and a half.  You all may also be interested to know that this one closes at 10 pm on most days, unlike our oh-so-healthy 2 am.  Preposterous!)

Dropping anchor

Today's one of those days when all I need is this:

Over the past six weeks, as I've explored what it means to live abroad, I've been on the lookout for reasons to be thankful.  Gratitude (when I can manage it) has an "anchoring" effect on me; when I don't make a conscious effort to embrace it, I'm liable to spin off in a thousand chaotic directions.

Kerry, Part II: the quaintest little town...and some more churches

On Saturday, a few lone seagulls joined me as I watched the buoys bobbing at sunset.

Back when I was looking at colleges, my mum took me on most of the campus visits.  (Ironically, I ended up at one of the three schools that I visited with my dad...and the first time my mother saw Union was the day I moved in.)  We had a joke, Mum and I, that grew out of the similarities between all of the Connecticut colleges.  (When I say "all"...I should explain that I applied to eighteen schools, and visited more like twenty-five.  I've since become a lot less insecure.)  One afternoon as we drove through central Connecticut, it occurred to us that our experiences were all beginning to blur together.  Each college town seemed to have cobblestone streets and vintage streetlights.  Each campus seemed to have identical sets of verdant lawns and an easygoing, peaceful vibe.  One, in fact, called its academic requirements "General Education Expectations", as if it would be just fine if a student didn't finish all of his coursework before graduating.

And then I ended up in a program choc-a-bloc with requirements and limitations and rules.  Figures.

Getting to Galway (Part I)

Me: Are you sure you can't come with me?
Sanjana: *fixing her hair and pretending she's not going to miss me*
There's really nothing like having a little sister.

Classy, as usual.

Greetings…from somewhere over the north Atlantic!  The first leg of this trip has just begun – it’s about seven hours from JFK to London, a two-hour layover, and then ninety minutes from there to Shannon.  (From Shannon, I believe that the bus ride to Galway is about two hours.)