August 17, 2024
Right now, I’m a week away from studying abroad in Rome. This is the first of many posts I’m making for this blog to document my travels this fall. As I write this, I’m on the back of a boat to Catalina Island for a last weekend trip before I go. My friends Julia and Amanda are sitting next to me and in front of me there’s a girl in a pink shirt dangling her arms off the railing of the boat. I think she’s about to throw up. I can’t wait to go to Rome.
This is something I’ve wanted for so long that I’ve endured endless paperwork, stressful phone calls, and shifting my regular life around a roughly 4 month period. Italy always seemed like a distant dream to me, a place I saw in paintings and books and never thought it could be real. But I’ve realized lately that things only happen when I’m sure that they will. When I really wanted my current job, I was so sure that it would happen and said that it would until it really did happen. With Italy, I walked into the study abroad advisor’s office (Hi Jazelle!) and said “I am going to Italy… where do I start?” A long process later, and it’s officially a week away. And suddenly something that seemed so far is very close. I’m looking forward to this Catalina trip because I love my friends and I’ll miss them a lot. The last time I was in Catalina was around 2018? Which feels like forever ago now.
My coworkers bought me an Instax camera a few days ago at my work-going-away-party. There’s something special about physical photos, the feeling of tangibly holding a memory that could fit in your wallet. I plan to take as many photos as possible, both on that physical camera and a billion more on my phone. My entire family is saying, send me pictures! I’ll send them gladly, because the pictures I take for my mom are the ones I end up liking the most.
The island is starting to appear on the horizon. It feels as if the boat were immobile and the island was the one drifting closer, growing by the second.