The Final Goodbye

12/11/2010

I’m sitting at the LAX airport having just arrived from Auckland. Firstly, LAX is possibly the stupidest airport I have ever encountered. I managed not to get lost this time, but getting around here is really annoying. Sorry, just had to get that out of the way.

Scott and Rosie took me to the airport (along with Ruth and Brittany) and it was one of the hardest goodbyes. Flat 101 is disbanding, I can’t believe it’s already been 4 ½ months. These girls made my semester as awesome as it was. The memories surrounding this flat, the crazy things we’ve done, the conversations we’ve had and the Harry Potter fan-girl squee sessions, the late night word searches/pancakes/doughnuts/movies. I couldn’t imagine having better flat mates.

How do you begin to describe the feelings leaving this country gives me? What words can give sense the gaping hole left? I can’t believe how fast time rushed past, how many friends I’ve made- and now said goodbye too. I know I missed saying goodbye to some of them, and if you’re reading this I am truly sorry, I didn’t mean too.  For someone who never cries, I cried far too often the past week. Why do goodbyes have to hurt so much? Even with the people I know I’ll see again, it still impossibly hard. 

Sitting at the airport with the rest of Arcadia’s Chch students was strangely familiar. In many ways it seems like just yesterday that we all met in LAX to fly to NZ. How crazy that I can look at everyone around me and think of them as a mini-family. We’ve all been through so much together, and yet, at the same time taken such unique journeys. We’re all so different, and will return to totally different situations, yet we’ll always be part of Jane’s Canterbury group- forever immortalized in her orientation horror stories as the group that survived the 7.1 earthquake.

As I sit here waiting for my next flight I can’t help but contemplate how much this trip has changed me. I’ve always been independent, but this journey has made me realize how important loved ones are. It has brought me so much closer to my family and friends. At the same time, it forced me to mature, and become independent in ways that I wasn’t already. Last year at this time I was in the middle of my first semester at college. While I was in the midst of planning this trip, I really didn’t know how much it entitled. It was basically taking a massive leap outside my comfort zone with only the smallest hope that I could tread water on the other side.