On leaving

"Sorry, I think you made a mistake on this," I say to the surly waitress at the airport Chili's as she hands me a $15 bill for my warmed-over nachos and flat Bud Light. "No I didn't," she responds, rolling her eyes and half-shouting over a screeching Madonna cover blaring from an unseen speaker. "The beer was $8."

I'm more ok than ever with leaving the States.

After three days of frantic packing and planning, a series of painful goodbyes, and more than a couple restless nights of worry and doubt, I'm leaving for Europe on a one-way flight, entirely uncertain of when I'll see the United States again. My overnight flight from O'Hare will arrive in Dublin in the morning, where I'll spend a week (largely in pubs, I imagine) bumping around the city on my own. From there I'll fly to Marseilles, France to meet a friend and we'll spend a week traveling the south of France, a week in Barcelona, and a week between Valencia, Zaragoza, and Madrid. At the end of August, Lindsey will fly back home to Memphis and I'll head to Zafra, a small town near the Portuguese border where I have somehow secured a job teaching English in a public high school. Our itinerary is fluid to the point of nonexistent; we intend to get to each place and see what it offers us, choosing hostels and CouchSurfing stays as they present themselves (a plan that has my poor mother biting her nails off back in Springfield). I'm not even sure where I'll stay after the Tuesday night lodging I've booked in Dublin, a scary but exciting thought.

I'm nerve-ridden, no doubt about it, but this is the kind of freedom I've been craving for so long, and I'm ready for it. I'm heartbroken to be leaving behind the places where I've been so happy and the people who I've loved so much, but it's time for a new chapter. Uncertain about my next career or academic moves (I never did figure out what I want to be when I grow up) spending some more time living abroad is the perfect way to write that chapter.