Tomorrow sees me hopping on the fourth plane in as many weeks back to my Italian home for the year. This final downhill path will perhaps be the easiest to cope with. Only two more months and I will be free from the stress of taking an exam or a recital tutto in Italiano and can come home for good and begin to carefully connect the jigsaw-puzzle pieces of my life to form the next pathway towards my future.
Those people in England who I have had the great fortune and pleasure to catch up with during the year have done so much for me. I mean that for every single one of you. It can be so very difficult uprooting your life, changing your education, your friends, your language and even (on a completely materialistic note) your dress sense. Seeing the familiar faces I have been so lucky to encounter has always made me feel as if home is not reallly so far away.
It is this which makes it so hard to leave, even though I have found some truly inspiring friends in my time in Parma. Some who I saw for months and months and some who were present in my life for the briefest whisper of time. Some who I now consider a part of my 'family'.
I feel like I'm trying to live two lives side by side. Every day in either place makes me feel like I'm missing a momentous occasion in the other. And neither place feels to me to be counter-productive. But all I can do is learn that I simply cannot be in two places at once.
When I get back to Parma tomorrow I need to remember what it is I love about the place, why I have chosen to be there, how lucky I am to have the education there that I do, and how many amazing friends I have there to share some truly special adventures with.
But for now I wish to reminisce. To soak myself in nostalgic English memories before I once more head towards the new and unfamiliar.
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