life in the middle

So, I am getting ready.
I am not nervous.
I am not really "calm", necessarily, either.
I mostly cannot believe that this is actually happening to me.

I've spent the last week spending time with people I love, shopping for things I need, getting my last American haircut for awhile (I LOVE getting my hair cut), cleaning my house for the "buen viaje" party, and trying to figure out how I got so far along in my life already. I've been planning and preparing, mentally, to study abroad in Spain since I was in ELEMENTARY school and we started taking Spanish as a "special" in 3rd grade. I was one of the only students who enjoyed it. I've been planning for Madrid since my senior year of high school when my crazy Spanish teacher told me it would be a good fit for me, and freshman year when Profesora confirmed this. I prepared my BU application starting last March, and starting last January and I was looking into/originally deciding on the Middlebury program before switching. This has been a long time coming. I have very few doubts about what's about to happen in my life, or that it's the right thing for me right now, but I am in disbelief at how quickly this has happened.

Before we went to college, I remember saying to my friend "once this happens, our life suddenly speeds up until we're real adults. Tomorrow I move into college and 5 minutes later I'll graduate, and so much will change. Tomorrow is the first day that my relationship with my parents starts to become like my parents relationship with my grandparents, and that's only a small part of it." It's true... it feels like it's been 5 minutes since I moved into SMC in August 2008, but it's been 2.5 years. Next week I will get on a plane and fly to Barajas airport, and when I come back across the ocean I will be considered a senior in college. It's unbelievable.

Recently I asked my brother "what age do you feel?" and a friend asked me "what is your real age?"... I LOVE this question, because I just recently discovered it. I think, for one of the first times in my life (that I remember), I really AM and really FEEL the age I actually am. I am 21. I am how old I am supposed to be. What I think is affecting the fact that I feel like time is moving so fast, is that I think I have been/felt this age for a couple years, and now that I'm really here it feels fast. My brothers response? "old. I don't know how old... I just feel old." My friends response? "35... I am definitely 35." (She is actually 22!)

Things have been so crazy I've hardly had time to think about all of this and I've been meaning to write this so many times this week but just found other things to do. I think one of my biggest goals in going abroad is to learn to just let go and relax. To stop finding other things to do and just be. I like to be really independent, I like to do things on my own, and I like things to be done right...I need to learn to let things be. In a short story we read in Intro to Spanish Lit sophomore year, Profesora described the protagonists problem as being between two extremes - either one strong emotion or another, and struggling to find the middle ground and peace in his life. Although I am fairly easygoing, I am also often at extremes, and I think I need to learn that balance as well, I need to learn to live in the middle. I think I've been learning and practicing this in my life at SMC, but it's time to apply it to my life out in the world. First stop: Madrid.

My to-do list is seriously dwindling. I have 5 real days left in the US. Tomorrow I'm going grocery shopping with Mom, having lunch, shopping and catching up with Kendal, picking Janel up from the airport when she gets back from Costa Rica (!) and then spending the evening hearing all about her trip. Then I'll get to spend a beautiful evening with most of my favorite people before a crazy last three days of packing, getting last minute things, and relaxing!

I don't think I'll get a chance to write until I'm in Madrid. So, here's to: Spain, Iberia Air not being as horrible as the reviews say, making sangria, saying "see ya later" and living in the middle.

Until Madrid :)