In exactly one month from today I will be flying over the Atlantic on my way to England. This is making me quite nervous. I have a terrible fear of the ocean - I am perfectly fine with flying, but i am terrified of flying over the ocean. Maybe it doesn't make much sense. If you're in an airplane, you're thousands of feet in the air and it doesn't really matter what is down below. But there is something about the vast unknown of the ocean. We don't know what is hiding in the darkest depths of the sea. There is some primal fear that engulfs me at the thought of crossing the ocean, which in my imagination is an abyss of watery shadows. The water is cold, heavy, black. It holds a sinister power, a dark magic. And my deepest human instinct seems to be telling me that man is no match against the sea's might.
Other than dreading my flight over the Atlantic, I am starting to feel rather nervous about moving to another country. It is common to take a semester abroad while in college, but I am going for a whole year. Yesterday I was visiting one of my best friends and we started to talk about how our lives are veering away from our carefully set plans. It was the sort of conversation you can only have with a best friend, someone who knows your whole story. And it reminded me that my story is still being written. I wanted to rush home and put a part of my story-in-progress into actual words. So here I am writing a blogpost.
I remember writing a blog post at the end of last semester about the power of leaving. Well, it is that force that has steered my life to this new direction. I hadn't planned on moving to Englad for a year. I was supposed to be returning to Syracuse to finish my degree. But that all changed. I know I keep dwelling on the shitty year I had at school, but it's hard to convey just how much changed in my life because of everything I went through. There is a line dividing my life into Before and After. The line falls directly on the first week of December. That's when I knew I would never be able to continue on with my fractured life as it was during the Before. I had to throw it all away and start from scratch because the pieces of my Before life were broken beyond repair.
I threw out my old life plan, the one that included not just a double major but also a minor. I had aspired to join Peace Corp or Teach for America. I was going to graduate with honors. I was going to live with my friends in an old house near campus. I was going to have a fabulous two years at Syracuse filled with golden memories. I pictured myself being a proud Orange alumna twenty years from now, still an avid fan of the basketball team. I would be married to an Orangeman I met during my picture-perfect college years; and, of course, I would be so proud when my son or daughter chose Syracuse for college years later. It was going to be an ordinary life, but a happy one. And I still wish I could have that. I wish I could have 4 college years to look back on as the start of it 'all' -whatever it would be.
I tried to hold onto the fraying threads of those possibilities. I tried so hard to hold that future together. But it was a futile attempt. That life plan was only ever a fantasy because, the truth is, I think this outcome was already set in motion before I set foot on my college campus. It started the first time I let my depression take control. And the depression just grew in strength all through high school and my first year and a half of college until everything broke into a million jagged pieces. Then, it was all After.
I didn't try to pick up the pieces and fit them back together. I threw them away and started from nothing. And when you have nothing and you are nothing, you can make anything. So I took the only thing I was sure of, my love of literature, and used that to put together a new life plan. That's how I ended up applying to Oxford. All I had was English literature and the power of leaving.
So I left Syracuse behind. Oxford lies ahead. After that, who knows? I'll probably have to return to Syracuse to finish my undergraduate degree but I know there's nothing left for me there. It's just where I have to return to receive my diploma before moving on. Now, I don't really have much of a life plan. It's only a fuzzy notion because I know better than to hand myself over to another conception of the future that will just splinter and fall apart with the tiniest disturbance. The hazy image includes returning to Syracuse for a last semester to pick up my B.A. in just English (no second major or minor, no Teach for America, no Peace Corp, hopefully honors because I still believe in academic excellence but other than that all I want is the degree). I would like to graduate a year from this December, then have the spring to work and save money for graduate school (wherever I end up...). But that's it. That's all I have for a future.
Right now I am going to leave the country, leave my Before, and seek out my After. There is power in leaving. I am choosing to depart. I am not taking any further questions; I am not saying goodbye. I am leaving. I do not know where I will end up. I am taking with me only what I truly need (including the selected friendships that are most important to me) and leaving all the rest behind. Will it be there waiting for me when I return? I don't know. I don't even know if I will be returning (metaphorically - I will be returning to America and most likely Syracuse, but I won't be returning to Before). I don't know and it's scary but it's also wonderful.
I am ready to fly over the ocean, even though it terrifies me with the shadowy depths of the unknown. I am ready to embark on the After.
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