40 Days and Home

Its 40 days, 40 days left until I begin the long journey home.  And I would be lying if said that the prospect of traveling home didn't panic me sometimes.  And again, I would be lying if I said that I wouldn't miss Granada.  I will miss being able to walk everywhere, I will miss my favorite café next to school (where I happen to be now), I will miss my eccentric professors and my newfound friends.  But at the same time, I will be overjoyed to be home, which is probably why I am the only student to know the exact number of days until I return to Mom and Dad and Than.  See, its not the US that I miss.  It isn't even Potsdam or Marlboro College or Camp.  It is home.  All three of these places have been a home to me.  Together they have formed a single notion of home.  Home isn't a country.  It isn't really a place.  Home is made by the people surrounding it, by the memories created within it.  Home is both concrete and transcendent, and I don't think I appreciated the depth of home until I was so far from it.  No, until I  had to recreate home so far from it.  But if home is transcendent, part feeling, fueled by memories, than I carry it with me, wherever I go.  Perhaps I am never truly away from home.  Then again, perhaps this is exactly what made it so very hard to uproot myself and start anew in such a new environment.

In these last 40 days, I now am reflecting on the previous 60-ish.  It was indeed a challenge, but I think part of the challenge was my own stubbornness.  I didn't want to create a new home here in Granada.  There were plenty of people I loved already, people I missed so keenly that I couldn't imagine getting close to the people here, only to leave in a matter of months, never to see them again.  It wasn't a conscious choice, I don't think, but on some level I wanted to protect myself from losing a second home.  I missed everything I knew already so much, to build something new only to lose it again seemed too much to handle.  But despite my own stubbornness, my own blocks, Granada has become a surrogate home.  And for a third time, I would be lying if I said it was like the home I left behind, but finally, I would be lying if I said that I would feel the loss of this home when I do leave.

So even as I count down the 40 days until I can see the people that I love, until I can lay eyes on the snow covered, festively lit town I miss, I also dread saying goodbye.  Unlike when I said goodbye to my family and to my friends, this goodbye is, most likely, permanent.  But that doesn't mean I have to board my heart up from it like I did in the beginning.  Rather, I almost should put more of myself into this experience, because I don't get a second chance.