The End is Near

I might have mentioned that it's almost December. As I face that fact and make my list of things to do this weekend and wonder whether to go on the art history field trip (more churches!) in spite of the massive transportation strike planned for tomorrow (I will probably go.. how many times in your life do you get the option to walk across Rome to hear Tags lecture at you?), and as I watch my friends take the links off their ever-shortening paper chains, I know that the end is at hand.

And I know it's kind of melodramatic, to phrase it that way, but I'm facing it pretty calmly. So far. It's the last set of readings before the last Monday lecture. It's the last week of ceaseless trips. It isn't that we're any less tourists than the people we see whenever we're in front of the Pantheon. It's more like we've become supertourists. We've seen more and probed much more intently at the ancient sites than your average tourists. We know where we're going and what bus will get us there fastest (or not, in the case of the pan-Italia seriously no kidding airplanes and everything else included).

We aren't your average tourists. But we're not native ragazzi either.

My to-do list is absolutely massive. Several of the items have a lot to do with getting my blog back up to speed and repopulated with the photos it deserves. Others are the assigned readings. And things like Greek, and homemade cards.

Usually by the time the semester is ending, I'm pretty burned out. I'm excited to pack up and get back to Georgia because I know I'll be back to school in a few short weeks to tackle it all again. But there's something more to lose here. It isn't that I won't come back to Rome ever again. I'm certainly intending to return. And it isn't that I'll never see my Centro friends again. We'll visit one another, at least the ones we want to see the most. In a lot of ways it's like GHP, except that I can't expect to go and work here in a few years. What I stand to lose is the combination of it all.

The huge Pamphili park up the street. Being a parking lot away from gelato. Maria who calls me a snail, and knocking on the doors in the hallway of this redone convent. Staying up too late playing Scrabble, wondering if we'll get special permission to climb Trajan's column tomorrow. Making classics jokes that everyone gets.

Roma aeterna will always be here. When I get to Nashville, I'll have my friends back (or at least some of them), and I can still see Carla and Derek. And I can always visit Emily, Kirsten, and Vinnie in Boston and Emily in Baltimore, and anyone else. But I won't always have them all at the same time, here. It's precious to us because it is limited. By now, very limited. A lot of people really are ready to get out of here. Some people have said very often how much they longed to go. They miss too much that is in the U.S. I know I am too, ready for a break that is. It's good to go away, especially to something like this. It's good to come home too. It's just that for the first time in my college career, I wish the semester had a few more weeks than it does. Not because I need more time to prepare, but just want more time to love it here.