6 (or esperanza.)

I've had M83's Saturdays = Youth on repeat for days now.

I felt a strain deep down in my chest for the handful of days over Christmas. I am surrounded by noise here, infiltrating every corner of conscious and it drives me crazy, as if I'm in the center of a mob and everyone's back is to me but no one will stop talking. I rarely hear a heartbeat from these city streets, and I grapple for every centimeter of confidence and esteem I can get. This time around I've now deemed it a pre-departure confidence crisis, where I feel insignificant and pull away from everyone. It happens every time I prepare to go thousands of miles away, but this time I feel like I'm going through motions from the summer of 2006, when I emanated distrust toward everyone. I restrained the crisis for a long time but last week I caved in and let it consume me. Emotions fluctuate, a lot, but it's all part of the pre-departure process, I suppose.

The strain first broke on Saturday during a brief phone conversation with Kate, my anchor, my ally, forever. It settled my soul and I just needed to be back home in Baltimore in her presence as soon as possible, which turned out to be, although short, that night. I went up to Baltimore to Woodberry Kitchen with my mom and Craig, and the restaurant once again proved its worth as a divine meal, indeed.

Afterwards I drove over to the Black Cat Red Room to celebrate my friend Mae's 21st birthday as well as catch up with the friends I rarely see, both in-town and out-of-town. I've only been to the Black Cat for shows or Food for Thought, so it was refreshing to just hang out in the Red Room and talk, ever so loudly over the music. It was a much welcome reunion. I left smiling and slept smiling.

Sunday I drove to College Park for post-Christmas dinner with Karen and Peter and a couple other people. Sitting on the trunk of my mom's car in the parking lot at Plato's, the weather was mild and relieving. My confidence began to build again and I stepped back on solid ground with playful banter between good friends. We can shake but can't crumble.

I made my way to Baltimore on Monday for records and warm drinks with Kate and stayed up all night with Bepstein and Jack. The following afternoon Chris and I drove down to the REI in NoVA so I could finish up some packing for Costa Rica (although still not done), and then we made our way through downtown DC so I could meet up with Lela, my friend from birth 'til death. We got manicures and pedicures and had dinner and gossiped and giggled...I see Lela briefly for only a few times out of the year, and every time it reminds me that we remain stable with our months apart. I have so many friends strewn about this country that I never see, sometimes for months or years, and when I do it's like we never left. I need to remember that physical presence, for a long time, meant very little in many of my close friendships, and those close friendships often survived the distance. I need to channel this confidence into my relationships here in the mid-atlantic and step away knowing they aren't houses of cards.

Tonight will more than likely be my final good-bye to my friends in DC. Hopefully it will be enjoyable.

5 (or photos from the past few days.)

4 (or "may the winter be cold outside and warm in our beds" indeed.)

i'm in bed reading ben snakepit comics and eating indian curry, which was the closest thing i found in the apartment to migas.

i began anti-malaria drugs yesterday which is a hard hit in the amount of time i have left. two weeks.

i also braved the mall with alex yesterday to do sears holiday portraits for our families. they turned out pretty well, for sure. after five years of being best friends, we finally have photos together.

after the mall we returned to his house for the tradition of cookie baking and love actually watching with his family. the holidays with the houstouns is the closest thing i have to family gathering and christmas spirit. it's relieving on many levels, being welcomed into a large family and tradition. sitting in front of the fireplace with a glass of champagne or decorating a christmas tree while tessa plays the piano...a dinner table set for nine and hours of discussion after the meal concludes. it's an environment so unfamiliar to me that it's somewhat of a living fantasy every year.

alex leaves for colorado on the 23rd and will only be home for a day or so before leaving for palestine on the 1st. i'm excited and nervous for his departure.

dc is full of invitations, as well as some repulsions. i left towson and baltimore with smiles and surprises...the last night of the semester i played my first game of beer pong (too gross) and drank a lindeman's lambic (too sweet) and talked for too long about plans that won't actually be made (two nights in a row). the following night gave me incentive to stay in baltimore, more than ever, but alas alas, things will hold strong while i am away.

so i look forward to the coming days, shuttling around maryland and the district, where my heart strings won't snap or sting, just flutter.

3 (or it's all downhill from here.)

and downhill is always too fast.


i finished my final exams this morning.
my apartment is filled with blank walls and dust bunnies.

the next 24 hours will be comprised of infectious pop-punk and light-hearted farewells.

...but this time it's more serious of a good-bye than what i can relay through a high five.

2 (or ducks in a row.)

I had my final appointment on Friday at Passport Health to get my Pre-Rabies #3 vaccine and my anti-malaria medication. The fifteen minute trip cost me just under $450, which brings my total to $1100 on vaccines and medications. I begin the anti-malaria medications next week.

Friday night my roommates and I threw a holiday/good-bye party for our apartment. One graduates and moves to Turkey in January, and the other two will study abroad in Denmark and Italy for next semester, leaving our apartment vacant and to be taken over by the soccer team. It might be the most successful party I've ever thrown in my collegiate career. Cheese platter, mulled wine and cider, silk nog, baked goods, snowflake-making and holiday coloring book drawing. More than 30 friends came to share their evening with us and it felt good to have them in our apartment, there with us, celebrating as we should celebrate the end of tenure at Goucher, although three of us will return for our senior years. I had one of those "stand in the corner and cross my arms and survey the scene and be satisfied" moments, which I don't think I will get enough of over the next few weeks.

I spent Saturday in the city, seeing old friends and walking around as if it was summer again. My heart is still here, in Baltimore. At night some friends threw a holiday party in Hampden, and I saw a mixture of roots, here and DC. The integration I began to see this semester has really made me happy, and drawn me closer, I believe, to many of those I pushed away from at home in the district.

I don't believe people when they say they'll miss me, wrap their arms around me and say it repeatedly. I smile, yes, but I have yet to let myself invest in such words, believe that I have created something here that will not shatter and disappear before my return from Costa Rica. Something in me says I'll come back and the trains will all be gone from the station, departed and left me behind. Things will change, indeed, but I know how quickly by which four months can go, how this severance from the mid-atlantic has different intentions than all those prior. Is it even a faith I must have? No, I think it's more solid than faith. I just have to let myself believe it.

This period is the end. I would not call it the "home-stretch," no, that comes at the end of April; this is just the first run in terms of this journey. But it is the end, the end of Goucher, of Baltimore, of the mid-atlantic for several months, and I think knowing that makes me a bit of a flake. I gravitate toward plans I end up shifting toward others, sometimes out of comfort and other times convenience, and although 99.9% of my environment doesn't care, I feel I let down the .1% that does. If there are too many plans, I must force myself to do things not out of obligation but out of want.

The two things with which I struggle are obligation and responsibility, dependability. I play too much into these roles, partially because of the family environment in which I grew up, but also because I too quickly take the blame to subdue anyone else's failure or reaction in case it is reflected in my own self. This pattern gets me into trouble. Trouble trouble trouble. Whatever happened to the girl in high school who went to shows and did schoolwork, a presence but never a being. But now things are much more complicated and I spend too much time separating the tangled wires. Is there time to separate?

There is no time. I flip through my slingshot and there is no time to waste, which begs the question:

Do I savor or spend?

1 (or introduction.)

In four weeks, I leave for my semester abroad.
I will spend four months in Costa Rica at the Monteverde Institute.
This blog is to document those adventures.

Today I attended the pre-departure orientation my college gives all students going abroad.
I realized I have to start making lists again and be more thorough in said lists.
Funny, because with thoroughness comes simplicity, at least this time.

The past couple of days were difficult for me; they were filled with overwhelming emotional anxiety, triggered partially by the stomach flu inhabiting my body over the weekend. My mom read me two chapters of The Wind And The Willows over the phone, and I cried throughout, falling even deeper into a panicked state. This anchor will not be accessible in a month. When the fear hits you, it's terrifying. The goal of going abroad though is to get over those terrors, am I right?

I'm not someone who typically shows a weakness for travel; I've gone on tour across the country, spent multiple weeks at a time thousands of mile away on the west coast, go to college...but some part of me says that this trip is much more consequential. Is it though? It's longer, that's for sure, and I will be in a cloud forest, not on a friend's couch. It's just a moment, a blip of insecurity, and on the days when I feel healthy, I know this experience will absolutely RULE. I know that when I'm sick, too, but less stoked when I'm a physical and mental wreck.



Expect and assume nothing.