I created this blog about five months ago; curled up on the sofa with a hot cup of tea, in what could truly be called a bachelor pad, located right in the middle of Beijing, China. I titled it “Ink Trail Through The World,” and was not quite sure what to do with it. Now I am curled up on the sofa once again. Except this time I am at my apartment, with a thunder storm going on outside; and it is not Christmas break but the final stretch of the spring quarter of my junior year. I am also inevitably about a month away, from figuring out exactly why I chose this particular title.
My mile markers for this past year have consisted of particular places that I explored and the oceans that I hesitantly dipped my feet in. However, now I am ready to go swimming. In just under a month, I will be leaving for an orientation in D.C. and then an intensive two-month language program in Alanya, Turkey. Following this I will spend about a week and a half at home, and then it’s off to Graz, Austria for about a quarter. From that point on things start to get a little blurry. I am thinking that I might want to take the next two quarters after that off, and travel around a bit, maybe try to pick up some Spanish. Nothing is set in stone yet, though. These are just foggy ideas creeping up here and there.
I am really excited and I am really nervous. The last time I was away from Seattle and essentially home, for more than three weeks at a time, was during the summer after my freshman year of college. It is not that I did not enjoy that summer, but I definitely got homesick, which was an incredibly unexpected realization.
The first four weeks of that summer were spent in beautiful Italy, partially traveling around with awesome friends and partially in conjunction with an academic program. Nevertheless, the next five weeks of my summer involved catching up with family. That is my family that lives in Sarajevo, Bosnia; well the part of my family that does not constitute my parents, because they are something much greater than just my parents, they are my life.
I had expected to feel at home and just be comfortable throughout my time there, and I was. After all, that is my birthplace and there is definitely something to be said about the place that you come from. What I did not expect though is the terrible yearning that I had for Seattle. This city with its bipolar weather and rainbow colored life-style clicked with me in a way only few have thus far.
Since that summer, I have continued traveling, particularly this past year. Yet, there is always a sense of familiarity and comfort when I see the Seattle skyline, especially the Space Needle, the way it is isolated and protruding from the rest of the buildings. It is like a lighthouse calling a lost sailor back to its safe harbor.
This realization is what makes me slightly nervous about my upcoming adventures. I am leaving a city that I have grown to call home, as well as some of the people that mean the world to me.
Yet, there is also an overwhelming excitement of endless possibilities that have somehow managed to take over every spare brain cell. Possibilities: for swimming the world’s oceans, as well as dreams of a future that might potentially involve law school; and in some faraway distance a life of diplomacy. Who was it again that said that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…..
