I hate goodbyes.
Today was the worst saying good-bye to Jose Maria, Salva, Ana, Sarah, Jordan and Leslie. (the people who work at the school and made this semester happen and helped me and Jill SO much). We hugged, we cried, and gave lots of besitos.
Its kind of an emotional day.
I came here with no expectations. I was in a state of just wanting change, wanting out of Santa Barbara, wanting to slow down time and postpone the future -end of Westmont, trying to figure out what I was going to do after graduation. I remember being in the airport back in September and laughing at myself because I was about to get on a plane going to Spain. Going to Sevilla was the last thing I thought I would be doing this fall. It actually had never entered my mind.
But, I am so glad I went. This was exactly where I needed to be this semester and the experiences I had here were the ones I needed to grow me into the person that I am becoming. Not that I am complete, but I'm on some sort of track to getting there. I have loved falling more in love with the Spanish language, making new friends, living and exploring Europe, and now its over.
I'm so thankful to my parents, first of all for letting me go, for bailing me out so that I could fully enjoy my time here, for being encouraging during tough living situations, and for sending me a package that took almost 2 months to get here. I'm thankful to my friends who thought of me from time to time and wrote me little messages on facebook or whatnot, little reminders of friendship meant the world to me while I was here, thank you.
I'm thankful for all the people at Acento, my school, I can't really put it into words, they mean so much to me. I mean they let me come to Spain.
Special shout out to my friend Justin who dropped out of the program, If you wouldn't have dropped out, I wouldn't have gotten to fill your space and come here.
I'm thankful for all of the new friends I have made here. I was skeptical at first of our group, but I love us now, all our problems included. No pasa nada.
I'm thankful for my new senora, Mari Carmen, for redeeming our home stay situation and for, in a way, redeeming our Spain experience.
And now it's time to move on and move out. I'm not quite ready for that, but it is what it is, sometimes we just got to go with it and make the best of what we've been given. It's kind of like that when life gives you lemons saying....only better, because instead of lemonade, I got fresh squeezed Spanish orange juice, and a lot of other cosas, in Spain.
"I don't think we can really understand how time passes. We can't study it like a river or tame it with a clock. Our devices only mark its coming and going. I dropped an anchor three months back but time didn't slow. Some things have to end, you know. You feel like life is always leading up to something, but it isn't. I mean life is just life. It's all happening right now, and we aren't going to be any more complete a month from now than we are right now." - Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts.
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