This is not a column about my semester abroad at its end. I still have a month left in Paris, and plan on living it to its fullest. However, this past weekend I realized just how short that month was and how much time has passed since I went on my self-imposed European exile. My momentum has shifted. I have started to feel the gravity pull that is home slowing me down and drawing me back. I’ve finally realized that I am going home.
This realization opened up a new train of thought for me. After living abroad for four months, I began to wonder if life back home would be very different. It will obviously be strange and annoying that I will once again be unable to legally drink. I don’t know how I feel about being relegated to the legal status of a child in that sense, mental maturity notwithstanding.
However, I think the greatest change will be in my attitude towards going out, and my social life in general. In Paris, the question is never, “Do I go out tonight?” but, “Where do I go out tonight?” All of the students abroad in Paris, regardless of nationality, realize that our shared time in Paris is not lasting, and that we all need to make the most of this fleeting window. There is a certain character to this sense of ‘carpe noctum’ that I feel can be easily packed and transported to the States. The feeling that life must be lived to its fullest because of its temporary nature is obviously one that can be applied whether you are in living in Paris for only four months or living in America for years.
It is 6:30 a.m. on my train back from Amsterdam and I look at the window, idly wondering about friends back home. I wonder how their lives are going. I remember what time it is back in D.C. and I wonder how many of them are pulling all-nighters. This train has Wi-Fi, and friends on all-nighters are usually a great source of conversation when you are six hours ahead of all of your friends. I realize how soon I will be seeing them again, and I wonder if anything has changed that much in four months. I am torn between the desire for everything to be new, different and exciting when I get home and the desire to return to everything the way I left it. I know I will probably get neither.
I am also simultaneously torn between the desire to go home and the desire to stay in Europe. I feel like there is so much I have not yet done. Cities I have not traveled to, languages I have not heard, beers not enjoyed. I know for a fact that I will come back to Europe at some point now. I have realized how much can be done with 100 Euros, a friend or two and a backpack, and I fully plan on doing it all.
Á nous doux maintenant!
thescene@theeagleonline.com
