Predeparture Worries

I’ll just admit it. Gearing up for a 4 month long trip is not the most exciting thing for me right now. From trying to book plane tickets for a flight home the week of Christmas to trying to scan every sheet of paper ever given to me that confirms my existence on this planet, I feel almost that I’m walking around with a 30 pound backpack, trying to escape the weight. But I decided to begin to take it one thing at a time. Today: simply two things to do. Apply for the internship teaching English at the local elementary school and hmmm… let’s see… book the ticket home. My mother isn’t too enthralled at the idea of me staying overnight in Chicago because I can’t book a ticket directly home the same day so she settled on the idea of me staying at the only hotel within walking distance of the Chicago airport: a Hilton Hotel. Now, who can complain about that? Certainly not me, a suburban middle class girl whose most fancy venture landed her at a spunky SpringHill Suites. Not the fanciest, but hey, no judging. It had a pool.

Anyways, I was all bogged down in this list of to-do’s that’s been floating around in my head until today, when I sat down, trying to find a copy of my resume after my computer had crashed a week earlier from a water spill incident (whoops). The funny thing is, it happened right after I found out about my Gilman scholarship. I was so excited that I had received the scholarship my hand whipped right over to grab a pencil from my pencil mug to write down a student ID number that I needed in order to accept the scholarship money when my glass of water plunked against my wooden desk and before I knew it the water snuck its way to the back of my lap top. That’s when the screen went blank and well, a trip to the mac store and $800 dollars later all I’m left with is a story to tell for a sometimes comforting yet annoying look of pity and empathy.

But that’s beside the point. I reached over to my 3 inch high pile of USAC documents kept neatly on the right hand side of my desk on the floor and sleeping quietly in the large manila envelope was two bright red USAC luggage tags. They were slipped in a plastic bad, and stapled to it is a note: “Save these luggage tag holders to attach to the bags you will be checking in for your flight to your program site.” I’m not sure if it was a combination of the word luggage and the feeling of the light plastic tags that fit perfectly in my hand, or maybe it was the fact that it all hit me at once: I will be leaving home and traveling across the world in only a matter of months. And these luggage tags are going to mark my way for me. They are little symbols against the stress, the overwhelming to do lists floating around in my brain, the documents that still lie sleeping on my computer awaiting it’s $800 dollar repair. But in spite of it all, all these things will come to and end, just as the moment I attach the luggage tag on my bags will begin my 4 month journey to Viterbo, Italy.

Here I come Italy. Here I come.