I had a permanent smile on my face for four and a half months. I met the greatest people in the whole world, and saw and experienced the most amazing places with them. I felt invincible in every aspect of my life. I prided myself on being dropped in a foreign country, not knowing a soul, and making the most of it. Once I realized that this was my life for the next few months, and NJ Transit couldn’t take me home for the weekend, I lived.
Adventure after adventure, so many amazing memories (that I will eventually document into a scrapbook one day) all led me to the departure gate of Rome Fiumicino Airport. A lack of sleep and so many questions had me in a daze for the next 9 hours. What was I going to miss the most? Did I ever really feel homesick this past semester? Do I have enough money in my bank account to buy people christmas presents? What if I fall asleep at this gate and miss my flight? Would that be the worst thing?
It took me leaving to realize that I didn’t want to go home. I loved who I was here. The complete and total control, yet complete lack of control, was invigorating. Rome became home, and I loved the person I became. I had forgotten what it felt like to be sad, and the feeling of yearning for something more, because in my head I had it all.
That flight consisted of intense journaling, the occasional tear, the repetition of songs that reminded me of my people, and a lot of eating. (ps I just turned on ‘When We Were Young’ by Adele to really set the mood). My thoughts were running through my head at a speed I can’t even begin to measure. It went too fast, the whole semester went way too fast.
My mind didn’t have the chance to calm down. I fought the time change and stayed awake the entire flight. I watched Love Actually twice and watched the man next to me eat sushi out of his backpack. Talk about a reality check. Before I knew it, I was flying over the thriving city of Newark. The blank expression on my face followed me through the cold hallways down to Customs and Baggage Claim. The signs were all in English as the primary language, there was no paying for the toilet, fast food restaurants were everywhere, and suddenly I really missed the challenge.
Customs was a breeze, they didn’t confiscate my bottle of wine. I stopped at the final checkpoint where they reviewed my passport. The TSA man took one look at me and immediately felt sympathy because I looked like a hot mess minus the hot. “Did you have a good flight?” he asked. “Yes it was long but it was good” I said. “Everything looks good here” he said as he reviewed my passport. “Welcome home Emily, and happy holidays” he ended our conversation. I smiled, nodded my head, and made my way down the final hallway.
I turned my phone off of airplane mode for the first time since August and called my parents. After a half hour of trying to find them, it turns out they were in the wrong terminal. This gave me time to pull it together. I sprayed some perfume and put a piece of gum in my mouth. A crowd of people cleared and I saw my parents and my poodle. My mom had a Starbucks coconut milk latté in her hand for me. After many embraces, we made our way to the car which was literally parked in the same spot it was parked 4 months earlier when they dropped me off.
It’s March now, and the thrill of certain things and people have faded. I sometimes still compare pizza places and red wine to the amazing options I had in Rome. But I learned to accept it for what it was, and thats amazing. Keeping the magic alive through the memories that go through my head on a daily basis is what keeps the smile on my face.
