For Graham, who's going to school in Montreal for the coming year and is probably boarding his flight right now: I know it all started out a bit rough, but you'll do great and I hope you have many adventures. Have fun in Canada and make a snowman for me!
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Last night was dedicated to laundry and packing. Packed suitcase number one, and after all the folding, arranging, and squishing, it weighed in at 46 lbs. I'm not even going to touch it unless I absolutely have to, but since I managed to pack in a good amount of stuff, I don't anticipate a problem.
This packing business is very odd for me. In all the trips I've taken that have involved luggage, only once have I ever had an entire suitcase to myself, and that was on the way home from Lima the summer before senior year. Even then, I'd arrived there sharing space with my sister; but whereas she left after two months, I stayed all summer. Having brought little clothing (I'm a very light packer) I used our smallest suitcase on the flight back.
Now I have to fill up two suitcases of 50 lbs. each, and each item that goes in underscores that this trip is different from all the others. I've never been away from my family for any significant length of time; even the month I spent alone in Lima after Alex left, I still visited my uncle and his family every week—he lived a 20-minute walk away.
This isn't a weekend trip where a backpack is sufficent, nor do I have to worry about my sister taking up more than her half of the luggage space. It's two regularly-sized suitacses, yawning empty and waiting to be filled with a year's worth of my life. To be honest, most of the time this trip doesn't even feel real to me, like as if this whole thing is some kind of daydream or an idle thought. It's little details like this that bring reality into focus. Right now I'm dreaming, but with each day that passes until Thursday, I wake up a little bit more.
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