The Northampton suburbs look pretty much as you'd expect them to: tall brick homes with neatly trimmed front yards and driveways with Audis and BMWs, which aren't nearly as posh in Europe as they are back home. Everyone drives like an idiot on the nearby M1 and takes the innumerable roundabouts at fifty miles per hour. "Two cars passed me on the way to pick you up," Chris tells me on the ride back to his place, and I can't tell if he is proud or furious.
This is my first trip since moving back to Kyiv two weeks ago. A bit soon, I admit, but the freedom my job allows is better than any narcotic. If I can scrape together the fare, find a couch to surf and free wifi and get enough to eat, I can go anytime, to any place. Maybe I'll go and visit my cousin Matt in Germany after here, I muse. Maybe not. Dubrovnik looks nice. But then, I really want to take that trip with Jaemi at the end of July.
I applied to graduate school before leaving the States. I found a truly perfect Master's program at a university near my mum's house and put everything I had into the application. It was what I wanted. Maybe it still is. Hard to tell, with this singular high so freely available and so seductive and addicting. The more I see of the world, the more I want to see. Nothing is as beautiful as somewhere I've never been. It's like a perfectly intact, tantalizingly large Christmas gift that my very fingers ache to unwrap.
So are the people. There is always a woman more beautiful, a child more intelligent and precocious, a man stronger and more charming to be found. Out here, wherever that is, I can always find wonder. I never lack for breathless passion or stunning beauty. Every day is a new gift at which to marvel and to savor the coinciding joys of youth and freedom. I will never have them together again. What, indeed, is the sense of pouring my heart into textbooks and lecture notes when it longs so much for endless, exhilarating adventure - and can have it readily?
I even relish the fatigue of a long travel day, my passport newly stamped and my backpack getting heavier. Meeting the challenge of remembering enough of the local language, of getting a decent exchange rate, of managing to pack with impossible lightness is a CV-worthy accomplishment that makes me feel stronger and more confident every time I do it well. I never get tired of being happily weary from travel, with all I need on my back and the world at my feet.
Millay once exclaimed in verse, "Oh, world, I cannot hold thee close enough!" I know how she felt. I'll never live long enough to satisfy my appetite for exploration or find just the right words to describe all that fills my heart and mind. But that won't stop me from trying.
This is my first trip since moving back to Kyiv two weeks ago. A bit soon, I admit, but the freedom my job allows is better than any narcotic. If I can scrape together the fare, find a couch to surf and free wifi and get enough to eat, I can go anytime, to any place. Maybe I'll go and visit my cousin Matt in Germany after here, I muse. Maybe not. Dubrovnik looks nice. But then, I really want to take that trip with Jaemi at the end of July.
I applied to graduate school before leaving the States. I found a truly perfect Master's program at a university near my mum's house and put everything I had into the application. It was what I wanted. Maybe it still is. Hard to tell, with this singular high so freely available and so seductive and addicting. The more I see of the world, the more I want to see. Nothing is as beautiful as somewhere I've never been. It's like a perfectly intact, tantalizingly large Christmas gift that my very fingers ache to unwrap.
So are the people. There is always a woman more beautiful, a child more intelligent and precocious, a man stronger and more charming to be found. Out here, wherever that is, I can always find wonder. I never lack for breathless passion or stunning beauty. Every day is a new gift at which to marvel and to savor the coinciding joys of youth and freedom. I will never have them together again. What, indeed, is the sense of pouring my heart into textbooks and lecture notes when it longs so much for endless, exhilarating adventure - and can have it readily?
I even relish the fatigue of a long travel day, my passport newly stamped and my backpack getting heavier. Meeting the challenge of remembering enough of the local language, of getting a decent exchange rate, of managing to pack with impossible lightness is a CV-worthy accomplishment that makes me feel stronger and more confident every time I do it well. I never get tired of being happily weary from travel, with all I need on my back and the world at my feet.
Millay once exclaimed in verse, "Oh, world, I cannot hold thee close enough!" I know how she felt. I'll never live long enough to satisfy my appetite for exploration or find just the right words to describe all that fills my heart and mind. But that won't stop me from trying.
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