The past few weeks have been a testament to my mastery of procrastination. I pushed back writing this post for weeks, two enormous suitcases have sat empty under my bed since my sister returned from her trip almost a month ago, and there’s a jar of peanut butter at the supermarket that has my name on it.
It’s not that I’m not ready to go… I have a flight itinerary that has been pinned to my bulletin board for a few months and my passport and visa have a place of honor on my bookshelf (after all I went through to get that stupid visa, I feel the need to check on it every so often). My local library was missing its copy of Chile (the ultimate resource for elementary school book reports) for a while, and due to various visitors, I have been speaking more Spanish at home than English. But despite my preparations and the huge “FLIGHT TO CHILE!!!!” that takes up the Sunday and Monday spots on my calendar, my departure has turned out to be less important than I thought it would be. Yes, I have already lived abroad and went through the three months of being mute because the only sentences I could come up with were the ones that I learned in my 6th grade Spanish class, but I still thought that this would be a bigger deal. Instead, I have two days left in the US, and I’m going about my life like normal. The goodbyes I have said to friends and coworkers have been less “I’m going to miss you so much!” and more “I’ll see you later!” and, while I’m sure that there will be some sadness when I say goodbye to my family, we have learned over the last year or so how to keep in touch with each other even while spread across three continents and four cities.
While I find it strange that I’m not freaking out about leaving, the contrast between people’s reactions to my study abroad adventure and my reaction to it amuses me. Everyone who has found out that I have decided to do this has fallen into one of two categories. There are those who are genuinely interested and want to know the how and why, and then there are those who are interested but more in a “why in the world would you want to do that?!” way. I have answered questions about weather, politics, economics, and safety… and by “answer” I mean, “gave an educated guess based on my stay in Argentina.” The mailman who helped me send out visa materials is convinced that I am going to come back married to some Chilean guy (we bet on it… I’m going to win that one). A woman that I work with managed to tell half of my coworkers that I was studying abroad in a matter of 20 minutes. My managers have taken the opportunity to ask me to come back with pictures or to tell me about their study abroad experience. One of my friends responded with an enthusiastic “that sucks!” when I told her I was going for 6 months, while others have asked me to hide them in my suitcase. Study abroad seems to be an issue that people can’t keep quiet about, and I think that’s great. Everyone else can be excited for me… until I get to the airport Sunday night and it finally hits me:
I’m going to Chile!
