Thinking about leaving...

My feelings on leaving Montpellier have been all over the place. When I first started thinking about it a month ago I wanted to stay. Then a couple weeks ago I started wanting to go home. I miss my family and my dog and being able to do laundry in an hour or two (washing AND drying). I was just watching a Yale history lecture on YouTube to try to study for one of my finals and all of the sudden I missed: a) being able to understand everything a professor is saying and b) being in a good school. I maybe haven't had the best UW experience, but their academics are without question better than Paul Valery. I miss having an actual bedroom, a kitchen with a table to eat at, and a bathroom (in three separate rooms). I miss carpet, being able to drive to the grocery store and buying enough for the whole week instead of lugging groceries home every 3 or 4 days. There are a lot of little things. Most of all, going home means finals are over. This semester... I'm telling you it's going to take a miracle and a half to get me through these exams.

Then today I started thinking about leaving. Not just vaguely, but actually envisioning myself hugging everyone goodbye and what I'll say and closing my Triolet door for the last time and handing over the keys and getting on the airplane and watching France disappear under me. Saying goodbye to these amazing four and a half months I've had here and going back to same old same old. No more weekend trips, no more running into friends on campus (at least not as frequently), no more excuses for crappy class notes (uhh... I didn't understand it), or putting off thinking about graduating. No more making fun of the French with a bunch of people who really get it, (one of our favorite pastimes).

I think I'll really miss really feeling myself progress in French. I'll miss the challenge that comes with having a conversation with someone here. Or that silly little bit of pride I still feel when I can order or ask or explain something without any mistakes.

I keep remembering my time here in flashbacks. A trip from préstage, sitting on the steps sharing a bottle of wine, getting lost on the way to class, a particular day we sat outside of Ionesco when it was still warm and talked, a night out.

It'll be tough to leave. I'm not sure how I'll feel on the 23rd when I step back onto US soil.

I did a lot of things wrong my first few years of college, I gave up a lot of opportunities for stupid reasons. I have a lot of regrets from those years. So I'm really glad I did this before I lost the chance.