It’s always a difficult few weeks before I head off for school. Given that I’m preparing to depart for the UK, however, and won’t be home for fall break or for Thanksgiving, things are becoming worse than usual, and this week–today, actually–things have come to a head.
The beginning
Monday, I had my wisdom teeth removed. All four, all impacted. The surgery was easy, they tell me. I’d be on my ass for three days, then I’d begin to recover. Don’t be worried about swelling or bruising, call if you have problems. That’s what they said. Fine, fine, everything was OK. I actually have yet to see an ounce of bruising, and the swelling wasn’t bad at all. And the drugs are great. But I’ve developed a really bad sinus problem. I’ve been on antibiotics for over a week, so I’m pretty sure it’s not an infection, but there’s a lot of pressure and it hurts like crazy. Two nights ago, it was bad. Really bad. And my entire face was aching. I couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours between drug dosings, and I started to cry.
So my mom, being a great nurse, sits me down on the couch and puts teabags on my eyelids and a washcloth soaked in cold water on my forehead to calm me down a bit. And it worked, somewhat. I felt better. Until she said, ‘how are you going to take care of yourself in London?’
The middle
Yesterday, I’m telling my mom about the Facebook group for my UK dorm, and the post a few of my flatmates had made for our particular flat. So far, it’s a group of freshmen, all more or less from the UK, all in total freshman mindset, which means, you know, they don’t know when they’re moving in, they don’t know what to bring, they have no idea.
And that makes me feel pretty good, you know, because I’ve done that already. I’ve already bought the two sheet sets and the miscellaneous organizational devices (only one set of sheets and very, very few organizational devices are coming to London with me). I’m worried about the stupid small things, finding the guy in the middle of massive Heathrow who is supposed to take me to the school, buying a cell phone and making it work so my parents (my parents, not really me) don’t freak out when they don’t hear from me as soon as the stupid plane lands, dealing with a bunch of freshmen and company drinking and partying during freshers week.
So, I’m telling my mom these things, telling her how it’s making me calm down to realize that these people are the same as I was two years ago. And she says, “I didn’t know you were living with freshmen.” And I say, you know, does it matter? They’ll just be slightly more stupid for slightly longer. And she says, “I thought you were living with exchange students.” And I say, no, I never said that, I’m living with all the other students. That’s what everyone recommends. And she just kinda nods and raises her eyebrows and walks away.
Today
I found out at midnight that my best friend has since left her study abroad program in France and is on her way home for personal reasons. She’s not studying abroad. And, this may sound selfish, but I was angry and thinking for hours about how much this sucks and how much it affects my plans. And it does suck, and it does affect my plans, but I decided at 2:30 in the morning that I’ll just have to make new plans. Oh well.
I tell my mom this, and she says the exact same things I’ve been thinking. Which is fine. I was relieved, actually, that I wasn’t the only one who thought these things, even if it was my mom.
But tonight, she asks me if I’ve talked to this friend to see what happened, and I told her I hadn’t. She asked what my dad had said when I’d told him (he told me not to say something I’d regret and to cool off), and I said, you know, I’ll just make my own turkey for T-giving, and that’s that (I was supposed to celebrate Thanksgiving with my friend’s family in London). And I’m fairly happy, trying to move on and make new plans.
And she says, don’t think that’s the way this is going to be.
“What?” I said.
Don’t build up these dreams and fantasies of what your life is going to be like there. You can’t make a turkey, you won’t have the equipment, you just won’t be able to do it. It’s not feasible.
Um. Excuse me? I personally think this statement was highly unnecessary and kind of cruel given that I’m trying to keep things together. Laugh if you want, but I get very attached to my plans.
So I get a little pissed, go upstairs, come back down, and she says the same thing again, at which point I announce that I’m going upstairs, and up I go.
An hour later or so, I go downstairs, apologize for storming out and say that I’m trying to wrap my head around the sudden change in plans, and she says, “I think you need to stop making this grand illusions for yourself.” I ask her to explain, and she doesn’t, really. I say that I know she doesn’t want me to go, but that I am going and that I’ll be fine. And she says she thinks its a bad idea. When I ask why, she goes into the whole living with freshmen thing, the having no friends over there thing, etc. At which point I start to cry and leave.
And that’s where I’m at right now. It’ll be a grand two weeks, eh?
Well, I’m going to London. By the time I get there, it will be too late to come back and return to UR classes like nothing happened. I’ll have missed a month of schoolwork, won’t get into any classes that I want or need to take. And besides all that, this is the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance I’ll never have again. I’ll never have the chance beyond this semester to live in one of the greatest cities of the world without worrying about a job or where I’m living or anything. And I’ve worked so hard to do this, with the application, and the research, and the arguing with housing and study abroad people about classes. It’s just…I’m too far in to back out now, and to back out of something that I’m so excited about! My mom says it’s like deciding you don’t want to marry someone, but going through with the wedding because your parents paid so much money for it. But that’s not what this is. This is three months in London. The people there speak English. I have money, I have housing, I have devices that enable me to communicate. Thousands of students do this every year. I’ll be fine. I’ll figure out how to cook things, I’ll figure out the tube. I’ll work through it, like I do at Richmond and everywhere else. It’s time to grow up and take charge.
And I’ll make my own g-damn turkey, too.
