And now it's almost over.
The thing is, so much has happened this semester - I've stormed Western Europe, made some wonderful friends, and learned more than I ever thought I possibly could have. But it feels like there's still so much left to do, so many experiences unlived, so much magic and beauty left to see. And I have to board a plane out of this castle, out of this country, in four days. It doesn't seem right, somehow, doesn't seem fair that anyone should ever have to leave this place. It is such a bubble, such an isolated community of some seventy eight people who grow close and clash and laugh and cry and spend too much time together that it starts to feel like there's no one in the world but the castle kids. It feels like we've fallen off the face of the planet together, and now we have to scatter and go back to the familiar and the friendly and the mundane.
It's not that I don't look forward to Boston, don't look forward to my family and friends and sweet summer - but it's the magic of the castle, the intoxicating sweetness of a different country every weekend, of new experience upon new experience, of friends and memories and shining eyes and bright smiles and the unreality of calling this fortress of brick and stone my home. It's the sharing of this experience with such wonderful people, many of whom I'd never have known if the castle hadn't forced us together and bonded us forever with the memory of this place.
Time here is different than time at home - you can't really hold it, and the end can hover away from you for so long. You can delay the reality of going home by going on trip after trip, spending every weekend until your last traveling and going out and living life the way you do every weekend, and all of a sudden, it's here, it's less than a week away.
They say the castle changes you - it's so cliche to say that you come home a different person, but I guess they're right. It's not anything tangible, anything explainable - it's this role I've been filling, this new person I've been growing into, the things I've been learning, the way you've just got to do all of this on your own. The more relaxed, easygoing nature of Europe. I can't say I'm not still me - I'm still neurotic and insane - but I can say that I'm not the same me who left the States three months ago. And that's good. You hear enough about the readjustment woes of former castle kids that it makes you worry about the way the new you will mesh, the way the castle kid in you can live away from the castle - it seems such an impossibility, because you've fallen so hard for this place, for this life. I know it'll be fine - I know there's so much waiting for me at home - but I don't think I'm ready to leave all of this behind.
It's the knowing that this will never happen again, I think, that does it for us the most. We can come back to Europe, travel all we want, but this experience is so unique, such a blessing, that letting it end is hard.
But a former castle kid gave me this nugget of wisdom the other night, and I've embraced it.
"You wouldn't want to stay there forever anyways," she said. "The transience is part of the beauty."
This semester at the castle was such an epic story, but lest we forget, it's not the whole book - just another chapter in life's sprawling novel. And damn, was it a good one.
I'm going outside. The air is cool and damp and refreshing and you can smell summer on the breeze.
Stay tuned.
:)
