I sat in an airport in Newark, staring out the window as I waited to board the plane that would soon carry me back to Chicago after over five months of being away from home. I still chewed the same watermelon flavored piece of gum that I had popped into my mouth three hours earlier just before leaving Hartford. I noticed an Amherst student with whom I had taken a class the previous year sitting at my terminal. For a brief moment we made eye contact before he quickly looked away as if afraid that I might acknowledge his presence or god forbid, that I might dare to speak to him. By now, the gum had grown stale which caused my jaws to hurt as I continued to chew absentmindedly. I sat upon the terminal floor drowning in my thoughts, completely unaware of the crowds of men and women who passed me by.
At many points throughout the year I remember longing for this moment. Now that I stood at the threshold of what promised to be a fantastic summer, I found myself ambivalent and somewhat reluctant to leave. I thought about how quickly the past nine months of my life went by and I wondered how quickly the months would continue to come and go. I recalled my dad saying to me, “Manda, there are many people who are alive, but only a few people actually live.” My dad’s words resounded in my head as I continued to watch planes take off and land banausically…
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