As a junior marshal (one L or two? google doesn't even know), I attended graduation, and in a way I felt like it was MY graduation, too. I'm not ever going to do the whole high school graduation thing as a graduate. I'll still be in Italy this time next year. My school here is just going to mail me my diploma when I get back. And I'm not particularly bothered by that. The whole wearing a cap and gown and walking across the stage thing has never been particularly important to me, and besides I'll get to do that after college. I'm not extremely attached to my school either. Still, I had a funny melancholy feeling the whole time, because this is the end. I'm not even sure why I should be sad about not returning to school. Before, I've never felt particularly attached to my school. In fact, I've always wanted like crazy to get out and do something much less ordinary, just like I am. So I'm having trouble putting a finger on the exact reason for the end of school making me feel so odd.
There are people I'm going to miss indescribable amounts, but most of them I will see over the summer, so it isn't really goodbye yet. They can't be the reason for my weird-ness. I think what I'm actually mourning at the moment is the entire network of familiar faces that I have at school. It's the people who I see and recognize, but don't know on any more than a superficial level. People who I can expect to see in a particular hallway at a particular time. You know how you get in a routine and you cross paths with the same people on a daily basis? Them. Does that make sense? I'm having trouble describing what I mean. I'm going to miss familiarity, which is something I've always taken for granted but won't have for much longer. In Italy, everything is going to be different and unfamiliar, and that scares me a little.*
I'm just going to blame my ridiculous waves of nostalgia during the past week or so on hormones. I mean, I am clearly not in my right mind when I am sniffling and stifling tears over a critical reading passage in the SAT about a character feeling a disconnect with her mother after being apart for a long time. (True story. I sorta teared up during the SAT.) Such silliness can't last long, I'm sure.
But everything is going to be okay because it is summer now! My summer is going to be great; I can already tell. Lots of marvelous things are in store. For one thing, my visa information came in the mail the other day, and it looks like I'm going to have to make a trip to Miami to get that all squared away. Which my parents find stressful, but which I see as really cool. I'm still not sure when I'll be going there, but it'll be exciting when I do!
And speaking of exciting, I'm going to New York City on Friday! It is a slightly sudden trip, and I am absolutely thrilled. I'll tell you all about it when I get back. Hopefully somehow in a way that relates to Italy... hmm... well this is going to be my first on my own traveling experience, so I guess I could look at it as practice for Italy. That might be a stretch, but oh well. Maybe I'll even make some pertinent observations about America's culture and how that's reflected in our country's most populous city and by knowing my own culture more closely I'll be better prepared to immerse myself in a different culture. So, it does relate! I'm perfectly justified in telling you all about my adventures in New York. Until then!!
*My mother said she hoped I would display some "honesty" and "raw emotions" on my blog. Happy, Mama? I don't want to sound like an overly dramatic emotional teenager, but she doesn't want me to be purely factual with a blog that sounds like an agenda. I'll find a balance eventually, I'm sure. I'm going to do my best to make this an authentic account of my genuine experience.
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