Well, I guess now's as good a time as any to blog. I've been home for about 9 days. Wow. I can't believe I was in Italy just two weeks ago. Wow.
I've been comparing my mind lately to a snow globe. The past three months have been insane, and I've felt like my mind has just been shaken up. So many new things and experiences and places and languages and food and everything, I just tell people that it's been snowing in my head for the past three months and I'm waiting for the shaking to stop so the snow can settle in my brain. I really can't describe what my life has been like these past three months. Awesome, scary, amazing, terrifying, annoying, moving, unreal... I just don't think there's a word that describes it. My life has been go go go and I've just gotten caught up in the whirlwind and did everything without thinking. I mean, how could I think about what I was doing? First of all, I didn't have the time. The ideal time for thinking is of course the short time between when you go to bed and when you actually fall asleep, but that time lasted a grand total of about 5 min or fewer when I was in Italy. Second, how on earth can you even begin to comprehend that you've just spent the day in the Sistine Chapel and the day before you were at the Colosseum and the next day you're going to a Roman emporer's villa? Or that you've spent the past two months living in a city that is over 500 years old, speaking a language you hardly know? Or that you've seen, in person, almost every single work of Italian art that defined and spurred the Renaissance, effectively changing the world? My brain can't even wrap itself around the possibility of that ever happening, let alone that it has already happened!
Existential. That is closer to describing how I feel about my time in Italy (and how I felt when I was there). It was like someone had taken hold of my body and made it go and do and see all kinds of insane, amazing things and I just got bumped into the backseat and all I could do was just watch. Surely I couldn't possibly be IN Italy. Those aren't really 2000 year old ruins (what does that even mean to be 2000 years old?). Those rolling Tuscan hills aren't really one-of-a-kind. I don't feel any different. My body's the same. It moves the same. Those people look like regular people. The whole thing was just weird.
That being said, I loved Italy. Despite feeling weird while I was there, my life was pretty normal. Yeah I had to eat a lot at dinner (thanks, Paola) and change my schedule a bit, but it was like being in any new place. Granted the language was a barrier, but it could've been worse. Taking four Italian classes beforehand was definitely not useless. I could still communicate (at least a little bit) with people, I bought my groceries the same way, I brushed my teeth the same way, I just walked a different route to school, bought kinds of food and used a different kind of toothpaste. I mean, I'm pretty confident that I was just completely overwhelmed by everything, but there's a definite chance that I was really underwhelmed, that instead of being numb beyond all feeling, I wasn't feeling because there wasn't anything to feel. Who knows. Honestly, it doesn't even really matter. I went to Italy. I lived in Italy. I went to school in Italy. I spoke Italian every day, and people understood me! No one can ever take that experience away from me. And I really, truly did learn a TON. Not just about Italy and Italians or history and art, but I learned a lot about myself, about other people, about who I really am and what I believe. It was a super-condensed learning experience for sure.
I wouldn't trade my Italy study abroad for anything. I've learned a ton. I might not know what all of it means, but everything is shoved up into my brain, waiting to find a home. I've made some really great friends, which is surprising in and of itself for me (you can say "whatever" all you want to that comment, but it doesn't make it any less true). And I guess the most perplexing thing for me is the fact that I wanted something really bad and I actually got it. I went to Italy. My dream came true. I don't know if that's ever happened to me before. I mean, yeah, I've wanted things, but not this bad that actually happened!
During our last group meeting our professor told us that it was going to take us years before we'd finally begin to understand what had just happened to us the past three months, a conclusion I'd reached long before he said it. Please don't ask me what it was like being it Italy or what my favorite thing was or what I'll miss most because I honestly don't know. Ask me again in 10 years and maybe I'll have something for you.
Don't get your hopes up, though. I've got three months of snow whizzing about in my head and every one of those days has been a blizzard.
No comments:
Post a Comment