June of 2019, I stepped into the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, having overpacked and underprepared for a long-awaited journey to a different continent. The sole purpose of this trip was for my high school's chamber choir to do a singing tour in Europe. Over fifty people gathered for the transatlantic flight as one, swallowing unit.

Somehow, with an abundance of familiar faces, it was still easy to feel alone. I had never been on a plane, never even left the southern United States, and as my pride was subsiding into nervousness, asking questions became obsolete as I waited in the queue to check my bags.

Chamber choir's journey to Europe was anticipated throughout the year; every concert was in preparation for singing in ancient cathedrals, every bonding event preparing us for spending too many hours together. Looking back, the hours were always inexplicably short.

I had just graduated from high school, chosen my college, watched as my closest friends chose universities across the country from me, and blamed the world for making everything entirely too complicated.

This trip was the bookend for most patrons' adolescence, a break in routine, a plunging into the deep end as unfamiliar days waited for us at the edge of summer. It was within perfect timing to begin preparatory nostalgia, and I have always been one for sentimentality. A wistful memory began to form prematurely, of singing beautiful music beneath golden arches, glancing at each other with gleaming eyes like we always had.

I have never felt so huge, yet categorically miniature than when I saw what the world looked like from thousands of feet up. A giantess unsure of her sheer size in that flying metal husk. The thought of little people in little cars with little lives all existing while I watched; I longed for that feeling to last, for the fleeting of forever to slow down.

Stepping into a foreign place was simpler than expected. I'm sure the cushion of my large, treasured group was to blame for the ease of entrance. The Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Austria blurred in the ways of poetry. Some pieces stood out on black construction paper, some moments blended effortlessly, but all were vivid in their own right. I was told to keep a journal to document all of my experiences.

I didn't.

Whether it be laziness or exhaustion or the inability to write down every wonderful thing, my journal only had the first page filled. More long-winded lines of longing, excitement, love, and how strange it felt to sleep while hurtling in the air. A blunt stop ended the page, and I never picked up the pen again.

It was disappointing to break one of many expectations, but this lapse did not prevent me from remembering. I see a distracted blonde head yanked back as she is pulled from a train track in Prague. I see more train tracks and broken red brick of Auschwitz in Krakow, dusted with tragedy, somehow capable of keeping the loudest group I've ever known quiet. I see a kitten playing in the dirt under a cherry tree in Zvolen. I see faces crying sad and happy in a hotel room in Vienna as we read carefully crafted cursive to each other, take time to sing a sobbing song.

This journey transcended friendship and vacation and learning; it was a melody within itself, the actual music being a sweet addition. I think that was our cherished director's intention from the beginning, but we have to keep our childhood stubbornness and humor him with forgetting.

This tendency to cling to time, these cemented promises of Remember, made it impossibly hard to accept the change that came with getting older. The final goodbye was sealed in being able to share this reminiscence with no inkling of selfishness or ownership.

Aside from abstraction, my senior farewell in Europe has been one of the brightest moments of my memory. Though I gave up quickly on the journal, I see my lost pages in friends, relying on that they will open for me if I feel my memory paling with time.