Dans les limbes

We are officially leaving two weeks from tomorrow... and the idea of two weeks has never felt so short! It seems like a highly inadequate amount of time to prepare for this. Things I need to do keep floating in and out of my brain, and I ought to start keeping a list, but then I would need like ten lists, and I don't know how I would keep track of it all! So instead I am using a lot of post-it notes and figuring that if I have been able to succeed thus far in college, my brain will be able to remember everything it needs to by the time I have to leave.

Around this time last week, excitement was battling fear and anxiety, and the latter was definitely winning out. There are so many what if's related to studying abroad that it's hard not to let that consume your thoughts sometimes. But this week, I'm happy to report that excitement has the lead. I feel like I've been home long enough to kind of recover from the stress of last semester and now I am ready (well, almost) to go. I can't wait to be there, to see my house and meet my mother in person, to speak the language, start the classes, meet the people, live in the beautiful country. I saw a lot of family this weekend, and when people would ask me about next semester, I kept saying, "It's going to be an adventure," because that felt like the best way to encompass all the feelings I have about going. I wrote a lot of papers about limbo last semester between my Spanish and French classes, and I feel like I am in a kind of limbo right now, in between France feeling like it is a long way away and it consuming my thoughts. I don't really have to prepare yet, but I should, but I have other things to worry about... limbo. Ready to go, but not there yet; not ready to go, but about to leave.

Right now, I should be starting the seventeen loads of laundry I have spilling out of my closet, but I am working on internship applications for next summer. It's hard to concentrate on something that seems so far away when I have so much other excitement impending, but the deadlines are fast approaching. I also have to work on making our itinerary for London. Helen and I are getting together soon to talk about it. Last week we got tickets to see The Children's Hour, a play based on the novel by Lillian Hellman (which I haven't read but it sounds like a good story) starring Keira Knightley and Elisabeth Moss! I am so excited to see them act in person. Our seats are the very last row of the balcony, but it's going to be amazing.

All in all, I'm pretty calm about going, at least right now. It's like Hagrid says in Harry Potter, I think the end of the fourth book-- "What's coming will come, and we'll meet it when it does." And it is certainly going to be an adventure.