Goodbyes and boxes

The first time I went on exchange I was 16 years old. I went to Finland for a year, for the first time alone away from home. Now, nine years later, I will leave again from a place that has become home.

That sounds all sappy and sentimental, and well, damn, it actually is! I was proud enough of myself that I didn't already cry in front of my class when they gave me the equivalent of Amélie's father's garden gnome. Remember that French movie, Amélie? Because her father doesn't ever travel, she steals his garden gnome and gives it to a friend of hers (a stewardess) who in turn takes it to all kind of famous places around the world, makes pictures and sends them to Amélie's father.

What I got wasn't a gnome – thanks for that – I got a T-shirt with very strange portraits of all of my class mates which I now have to put on at any kind of interesting spot in Japan and then get a picture of that. So they all can say afterwards that they went to Japan. And I can make a perfect first impression on any Japanese I will meet, wearing a shirt with people making weird faces on it.

Thanks guys!

But seriously, it's really sweet in a strange way that fits quite perfectly how I like to go about things. I imagine they guessed as much. (As I have said before, KEMUT, I will miss you! And I will take you with me to Japan, in cotton form.)

So the shirt was yesterday midday, the last time this year that I went to lunch with my class mates at my Finish school. Then the evening went with me cursing over my luggage and the 23kg I'm allowed to put in it and the fact that I never realized before I had so much clothes. I was frustrated enough that I started blubbering over Elton John's rendition of 'Can you feel the love tonight' of the Lion King soundtrack. Though to my defense that might have also been because Petra (one of my Finish family aka one of my flat mates) was singing along with it...

Eventually the evening went wonderfully though. I did fit my stuff into my luggage somehow and we spent the rest of the time sitting together in our oriel window by candle light, looking out over Lahti city at night, taking weird photos. (What is it about those photos, really?)

Saying bye over the phone to my mum and grandparents wasn't easy, either. We already don't see each other except for maybe two times a year, but the additional distance and time difference of Japan makes things even more complicated. But we will manage, and it is only a year. I will be back so soon. Already in February next year when this whole Japanese adventure will already be over.

But now is now. And now is morning.

My things are packed into my luggage, and, with possible subtenants and/or another move coming up, into boxes. And my room doesn't feel like my room anymore. It's sad now. Stripped. White walls and empty shelves. A visual throwing out. But in its midst stands my luggage. Packed and waiting. Waiting for me to take it up and take it out and take it to Japan and with it make another space, somewhere there, my own.