Lord Lord Lord
I can't pack.
I am sitting on my bed in a mess of a room, everything ready for me to place into my suitcases, and I just cannot do it. I have to. I won't have time to do it tomorrow because the next time I'll be home after I wake up, my host sister and I will be lugging the bags downstairs so I don't have to do it alone at 4 AM. So I know that the longer I sit here staring and listening to the most melancholy songs I own, the worse I'm making things for Future Zoë.
I've been working on packing on and off for about ten hours now. I've got one packed and all of my clothes except the ones I'll be wearing tomorrow and to the airport are inside my big suitcase. But here I sit.
I can't stop myself thumbing through old field notes or looking at random sentences I've written--little reminders, quotes I've heard in passing, or just thoughts I've had--reminding myself of how amazing my time here has been and how close I am to it all being over.
It's not that I'm not excited to see my parents again, because I am. It's not that I won't actually start crying tears of joy when I forcibly hug my cat again, because I will.
It's just that, as great as the people in my life in Hawaii are and as happy as I will be to return home, I won't ever be able to forget how good I felt here. It was all so effortless. I mean, the research and the rain and the cobblestone and the traffic and all of that was no walk in the park, but the feeling of lightness here was just so natural. And while I love most of my life in Hawaii, that effortless happiness takes a lot of effort to achieve most of the time. It's hard to let that go.
It's hard, too, to let go of the people I have met here, especially in the coffee shop. Without fail, I have stayed between 30 minutes and 3 hours every single day in that shop (usually more like 1.5 hours). I have come to know everyone there so well--from my anthropological observations and from personal conversations. They're my little Florence family and the shop is my little Florence home. Today, one of the baristas told me that I couldn't leave because they'd all grown very "attached" to me. I wish I could stay. They make fun of me for how much I wish I could stay ("She says she doesn't want to go home, but it's HAWAII), but I think they get it, too.
So, it's tough to think about how to avoid breaking a kinder egg in transit when there's all of this going on in my head, in my heart. And I am happy. There is excitement there, to be home, to flop onto my couch at home and not feel any pressure to leave for at least two weeks. But it's bittersweet.
I must be forgiven, then, for my complete inability to put the mundane objects that have formed my simple life here into a suitcase that will be gone from Florentine soil for far too long.
I am sitting on my bed in a mess of a room, everything ready for me to place into my suitcases, and I just cannot do it. I have to. I won't have time to do it tomorrow because the next time I'll be home after I wake up, my host sister and I will be lugging the bags downstairs so I don't have to do it alone at 4 AM. So I know that the longer I sit here staring and listening to the most melancholy songs I own, the worse I'm making things for Future Zoë.
I've been working on packing on and off for about ten hours now. I've got one packed and all of my clothes except the ones I'll be wearing tomorrow and to the airport are inside my big suitcase. But here I sit.
I can't stop myself thumbing through old field notes or looking at random sentences I've written--little reminders, quotes I've heard in passing, or just thoughts I've had--reminding myself of how amazing my time here has been and how close I am to it all being over.
It's not that I'm not excited to see my parents again, because I am. It's not that I won't actually start crying tears of joy when I forcibly hug my cat again, because I will.
It's just that, as great as the people in my life in Hawaii are and as happy as I will be to return home, I won't ever be able to forget how good I felt here. It was all so effortless. I mean, the research and the rain and the cobblestone and the traffic and all of that was no walk in the park, but the feeling of lightness here was just so natural. And while I love most of my life in Hawaii, that effortless happiness takes a lot of effort to achieve most of the time. It's hard to let that go.
It's hard, too, to let go of the people I have met here, especially in the coffee shop. Without fail, I have stayed between 30 minutes and 3 hours every single day in that shop (usually more like 1.5 hours). I have come to know everyone there so well--from my anthropological observations and from personal conversations. They're my little Florence family and the shop is my little Florence home. Today, one of the baristas told me that I couldn't leave because they'd all grown very "attached" to me. I wish I could stay. They make fun of me for how much I wish I could stay ("She says she doesn't want to go home, but it's HAWAII), but I think they get it, too.
So, it's tough to think about how to avoid breaking a kinder egg in transit when there's all of this going on in my head, in my heart. And I am happy. There is excitement there, to be home, to flop onto my couch at home and not feel any pressure to leave for at least two weeks. But it's bittersweet.
I must be forgiven, then, for my complete inability to put the mundane objects that have formed my simple life here into a suitcase that will be gone from Florentine soil for far too long.
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