It's the Final Countdown

January 27. The day I leave Austria with no pre-determined date of return. The day that's been looming in my mind ever since I returned last Thursday. Everytime I look at a calendar, I get a panicked feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don't want this experience to end.


I am reminded of a line written by another Harvard student, an undocumented immigrant, when faced with the prospect of being deported to her "homeland" in South America: "I speak faster in hopes that I might get more English words in. I kiss slower to feel more, here, longer. I’m at a road that bifurcates into continents and I am terrified." I know, of course, that our situations aren't even remotely comparable. The student even calls me out directly in another part of the essay, saying: "I can tell you I've had to sit through my friends' thousand-picture slide shows of their backpacking trips through Europe and that I feel more and more deflated after each click because I can't leave this country and I can’t study abroad and I’m even afraid to take the Greyhound." But I understand the panic of a rapidly advancing calendar date and the wish to make time stop. I stay in the kitchen longer, constantly reminded that each meal is one more chance to talk to my friends in Haus Salzburg, one more chance to hear the Austrian dialect that was once undecipherable but now sounds so beautfiul to me, one more chance to learn a new word, or to finally use Konjunktiv II in der Vergangenheit mit Modalverben correctly.

But then, I am reminded that good-byes are only painful when they are to people you have grown to care about, that it's better to feel sad than to feel nothing at all, and that grief is the price we pay for happiness, because everything must, in fact, come to an end. And I certainly don't want to let my sadness at leaving ruin my last two weeks here. So as much as I can, I'm going to resolve to put the date out of my mind and instead concentrate on making Philly Cheesesteaks (with Cheez Whiz brought from America!) with Marco on Sunday, finally getting around to writing the 20-page term paper for my youth sociology class, enjoying my Christmas gift from Meli -- a self-prepared three-course Austrian meal, and planning one last shebang with Brie for everyone we've met this semester in Haus Salzburg.