Presents are pressed tightly into my large suitcase, wrapped in t-shirts and cushioned by underwear, hankies, skirts, and sweaters. I think it might be overweight just a touch. But that's why there's still so much room in my other checked bag, into which I dumped everything else: books, notebooks, leftover clothes, less breakable presents, shoes, and clothespins, among other things. It's pretty much the catch-all.
I just spent the last hour walking around, running into people and saying goodbye. I can't believe I'm actually going to be leaving tomorrow. It seems so strange that the day after tomorrow I won't be waking up on this same bed, in this same room, to do the same old thing. The day after tomorrow is a Wednesday: I would be taking a slow morning, going outside to do some hand-washing, coming inside to do whatever homework I had left before classes started for the day at 12.
Saying goodbye is strange. It doesn't seem real. You give someone a hug, and you wonder, Am I really not going to see this person again? Is this really it? So you hold tight, and you squeeze, but you can't shake that surrealist doubt in your mind as to the reality of the moment. You feel like you should say or do something more, but you don't know what. Because when you're leaving, what more is there to say beyond "goodbye" and "it was nice to know you"?
Tomorrow I'm leaving on a jet plane. By Wednesday afternoon I'll be in Chicago. By Friday night I'll be home. Saturday I'm eating real, flavor-filled food with my family. Sunday my parents are having an "open house" for people to come see me home. But I think that part of me will always be here.
We meet to part, and part to meet. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. There's numerous song lines that could speak to my situation right now. But I'm falling back on the classic love of mine, Del Barber:
"Chicago calls, and I can't let her down."
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