My days as an expat are coming to a close. One week from today I will be on a plane heading back to America. [insert dramatic pause here] Yes, AMERICA. Needless to say, I have very mixed feelings about this fact. Some days I get lost in thought thinking about how great it will be to see my family, to kiss my pooch, to sit on the porch at the Fair, to go back to Rhodes and move into my new house with some of my dearest friends, to eat purple-hull peas, watermelons, Central BBQ nachos and Jerry’s snow cones supreme (just to name a few). I get excited looking to the future and all I left behind to come here because that life is good too. But then I think about what it will be like to not be here and, well, I just can’t bear to do it.
Last night I was sitting on a park bench with Karolina and her friend Vika. Karolina asks me, “So, have you decided when you’re going to Piter?” (My travel plans are perpetually up in the air, I am in the former USSR after all). I reply, “Yeah, actually this time next week I’ll be there. Crazy, right?” “And then you’ll be in America!” she responded excitedly, expecting me to share in this sentiment. But all I could think was, “Блин. Я не представляю...Америка.” That thought freaked me into a silent shock as I realized all at once, all over again what that means. It means that everything that has become normal will disappear. The way that I now talk, act, dress, interact, buy things, read, dream, travel, understand, eat, drink, and think is all about to change. Living in America is great and I am glad to be going back, don’t get me wrong, but life there is very different from life over here. Going so suddenly back to that world is, basically, absolutely terrifying.
I've been abroad for a good while, almost seven months now. A lot of time has passed and a lot has happened, both here and at home. Shortly after arriving in St. Petersburg, I remember asking my roomie Neha (who spent last semester in Argentina) if she thought that she changed a lot during her semester abroad. Honestly, I thought she would probably say yes. She, however, responded by saying no, that she actually discovered she is exactly who she thought she was all along. She asked me if I thought I was changing, to which I replied, I don’t know. At the time I was in the middle of experiencing so many new things at once, and I really couldn’t put into words how that was affecting me. I couldn’t say for sure if I was changing or not. But as I look back at my semester and I see where I was at the beginning and I see where I am now, I think that Neha had it right. The way that I live has changed. The kind of experiences I have on a daily basis has changed. But I feel more self-aware than ever before. I feel that a part of me that has always been there has had the chance to live freely and wildly in Russia. And, oh it feels good. In the words of the great Emliy Tamkin, if my soul had a voice it would probably speak Russian with a Southern accent. That’s who I am. Piter helped me to see that very clearly, and not being in Piter (or in Belarus) will not change a thing.
So this is my last hurrah, my last chance to take in every moment. In the next week I will be in four different countries. Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and America. And once I’m in America, well, I’ll be in America. That’s the final destination (at least for now). And despite the nostalgia, despite the shock, despite that part of me that’ll still be floating somewhere along the Neva, I think I will really be happy.
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