Footprints

fourteen

One day. One day left.

Paris was amazing. I'm so thankful I got to go. We went to the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, Louvre, and Arc de Triomphe. I loved it all, but my favorite part was seeing the Eiffel Tower at night. There were a bunch of people who had set up areas to sing or play different instruments, and one person had a small show going on, doing tricks with fire. At one point, exactly 11:00 I think, these lights started to go on and off, twinkling on the Eiffel Tower. It looked magical. I took some pictures but then I just kind of stopped and stood there, looking at it, taking it all in. I forgot about everything else, and it was perfect. For just a moment, everything was perfect. I could've of stayed there forever, in the warm night air, just looking.

If I could go back and do it over all again, I would. What I mean is that if I had to make the choice to come to Germany or not, now that all of this has happened, I would. Without a doubt. Sure, it was hard. At times I felt loneliness that I had never experienced before. But when I think back on this year, homesickness isn't what pops into my mind right away. I remember the good times above all that. I remember my friends, the parties, the things I did. I remember my favorite moments, like canoeing last week, or Lea's and my 80's themed birthday party. Or the small things, like how Anna and Lena and I would always drink Arizona Tea on Friday's during the lunch break and call them our Arizona Tea Parties. I'll miss all of that so much. My point is, the good overrules the bad. It always depends on how you look at the situation, but I'm definitely setting on keeping the positive memories close rather than the negative ones. Obviously, you have to remember both, because that's the way life is. But you have to know which side to focus on.

It's weird how I've been waiting to go back home the whole time I've been here. These last few weeks I kind of forgot about going home, I didn't pay attention to it because I wanted to enjoy on my last moments. I wish that, this year, I hadn't focused on it so much and that I lived in the present, like I have been lately, but now it's too late. We all learn from our mistakes, though. I'll remember that for next time. But now that I'm actually going home, it does feel weird. Not as weird as it felt when I was about to fly to Germany, but almost. Back then, I was a whole different person. I've learned and changed so much. I don't know how to feel. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. I just feel everything at once.

Sometimes I go back and read the chapters I wrote from the beginning of the year. It seems like forever ago, but just yesterday at the same time. How can that be? Back then, I always wondered how I would feel when August came around, how I would feel on my last few days here. Back then, it seemed like this was so far away. Yet, here I am. My last night in Germany. I don't know how it feels. Well, I do, I just can't make sense of it. It feels like a lot of different things. Sadness is definitely in there, fear as well...but also feel happiness, and for some reason, relief. I don't know. Just thinking about all of this makes me want to cry. For some reason, I have to make everything so complicated, so deep that I can't even understand it myself. Don't ask me why...I wouldn't be able to give you an answer.

I'm all packed and set to go for tomorrow morning. It's going to be crazy, in different ways, for different reasons. I don't know what to expect. I'll just feel even more emotions that I have to make sense of. Tomorrow is when it's all going to really hit me, I assume. I'm going to realize that everything is actually ending. I wonder what that will be like. But tomorrow is tomorrow and today is today. Pretty soon, they'll all just be yesterdays. But one thing stays the same: time is a bitch, and time will always be a bitch. That is the one thing that I will be absolutely sure of when I fly home.