Following the advice I received from a vendor at Marché Gloriette in late January or early February - I can't remember now that so much time has passed and all the days have begun to blur together - I went to the SNCF yesterday to purchase my ticket to Paris.
Such a strange thing, buying a ticket for 27 May when it is only 27 March. But the advantages of buying the ticket as early as possible means paying an unbeatable price: 22,50 euro. Still even knowing this couldn't fully manage to quell the sudden rush of panic I felt as the machine told me to wait as it printed out my ticket - panic at the thought of leaving Nantes, panic at the thought of the unknown that lays ahead in Paris.
I've grown comfortable here and it wasn't until I was faced with the realization that I will be leaving soon that I truly realized this. I have settled into a schedule, a pattern, a life. I am finally beginning to recognize faces of people I have seen around Nantes before and at times even share with them a brief glimpse of recognition. In classes I am finally beginning to get to know the other students, to make friendships.
And all too soon this will be over, I will see these faces no more and those friendships may end up proving too fragile to resist the tension of the international distance. I realize now that whatever it was I hoped to accomplish in coming here for 6 months will never come to fruition - it was too ambitious and the time does not agree.
But still I've begun something, a process of change in myself. I realize now that some of my fears and hesitancy have been worn away and replaced by a sense of - what? I wouldn't call it courage, for I am nothing close to that. But I am no longer as afraid of striking out or traveling to a place where I know no one and everything is strange. Whatever you call that feeling, it is now growing inside me and I didn't even realize it until a piece of printed paper that will take me from Nantes to Paris was in my hands.
Such a strange thing, buying a ticket for 27 May when it is only 27 March. But the advantages of buying the ticket as early as possible means paying an unbeatable price: 22,50 euro. Still even knowing this couldn't fully manage to quell the sudden rush of panic I felt as the machine told me to wait as it printed out my ticket - panic at the thought of leaving Nantes, panic at the thought of the unknown that lays ahead in Paris.
I've grown comfortable here and it wasn't until I was faced with the realization that I will be leaving soon that I truly realized this. I have settled into a schedule, a pattern, a life. I am finally beginning to recognize faces of people I have seen around Nantes before and at times even share with them a brief glimpse of recognition. In classes I am finally beginning to get to know the other students, to make friendships.
And all too soon this will be over, I will see these faces no more and those friendships may end up proving too fragile to resist the tension of the international distance. I realize now that whatever it was I hoped to accomplish in coming here for 6 months will never come to fruition - it was too ambitious and the time does not agree.
But still I've begun something, a process of change in myself. I realize now that some of my fears and hesitancy have been worn away and replaced by a sense of - what? I wouldn't call it courage, for I am nothing close to that. But I am no longer as afraid of striking out or traveling to a place where I know no one and everything is strange. Whatever you call that feeling, it is now growing inside me and I didn't even realize it until a piece of printed paper that will take me from Nantes to Paris was in my hands.
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