It's not that we're different,


we're just very unsimilar.





When I think back on the last couple of weeks, I get this churning feeling inside my stomach. It's not like, hunger or anything, it just feels...empty. No matter how hard I try to push it away, it just sits there, reminding me of my impending departure.





Even now, listening to Wilco's Sky Blue Sky, I can feel it in my stomach. I have less than 48 hours to go, and I'm...undecided.





People ask me how I feel. In response to that, I come up with a very smooth answer:





"Gee, uh...I don't know...???"





Which is true. I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to feel. I mean, yeah, I'm sad that I'm leaving my friends behind, but in a strange way, I feel excited about starting a new life.





But here's the clincher, most of the time, I feel nothing. Empty. Like during the farewells, while my mother is crying buckets, I'm just sitting there, laughing with my friends. No matter how much I try to make myself think about leaving these people forever, it never works. I keep on cracking jokes, laughing with them, like next week, I'm coming back to hang with them again.





And that's what scares me, me not being able to grasp the solemnity of it all. Is it because I tend to live in the moment, is it because I have a heart of stone, is it because this is my way of detaching myself? I have no way of knowing...





See, when it's time to say goodbye, while everyone's busy telling me to take care, study hard and enjoy myself, when it would be considered APPROPRIATE to cry, I'm just there cracking jokes, acting like, "Oh, y'know, this is temporary, I'll be back before you know it". And then, when I get home, when I think back on all the things I've done or when I write things down, like now, the tears start to fall.





It's not that I don't want to cry during farewells, but that empty feeling inside, threatening to swallow me whole, it just stops me from crying, even though I want to so badly, to let out my frustrations and bridge that roaring chasm inside me.





Maybe it's the scary thought that this time next week I'm blogging in a new house in a differnet country in a different time zone a million miles away from everyone.





There will be no more people calling me American.


There will be no more pinching of my cheeks.


There will be nobody to call up on a whim.





At times like these, I wish I could jsut bury my head in my pillow and

• cry


• scream


• sob


• do all of the above.

When I walk away, sometimes I wish I could cry to allay the cold bitter wind howling around that empty hole, to heal the hurt and pain roaring inside of me.

The wind now is picking up speed, tearing away pieces of my heart, bit by bit.

By Thursday, it will have done its job.

The pieces of my heart will heal, but it will take time.

And then, perhaps there will be silence.

And with silence, perhaps will come peace.

hold tight, never let go.

"Everybody needs to let go sometime.

We just let go sometime sooner than later."

-Steffi Caldwell.

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