Jet Set Blues.

Jet Set. I learned this clever, little term from my older sister, who by the way is the real jet set queen. I am currently running on three hours of sleep after dropping my sister off at the airport this morning... Normally this would not be a problem except I am headed to the airport in oh, about 12 hours from now for my own adventure. I will be experiencing a full 24 hours of travel time in the next two days, and I probably will not get any sleep tonight. 

The reason for my travels-studying abroad. I have been dreaming about studying abroad since I was a sophomore in high school after visiting my sister in France (again, real jet set queen). My desired location is Madrid, Spain. After spending my first two years in college trying to decide on a location, I finally picked Madrid and I could not be more excited. But I am experiencing a little of the jet set blues. I have not been able to properly express my feelings about these next five months I will be away from home because quite frankly, I love being home. I have had so much going on here that I put off thinking about leaving my loved ones here. 

First, there is my family. This is the longest I will ever be a part from them (my hometown is only 45 minutes away from my college town) but knowing how excited they are for me eases the pain. They're my best friends so I am not sure how I will be able to adapt to not seeing them often. As of now, I am also looking into the future when they come visit me, which also eases the pain. Second, my best friend from college. We're not only best friends, we have been roommates for two and a half years. That is a lot of time together that has created an incredibly strong friendship. This semester is the longest we'll be a part, but we're obsessed with updating each other about our lives so I know we'll be okay. Third, my best friends from home. I mean by now we are used to the long distance friendships, but the fact that communication may be limited and the time difference does stress me out a little. Then again, I text my best friend every single day, and I do not really plan to stop now. Lastly, I met a boy. We started dating, even though we knew I would be leaving for five months. We did not really have an agenda, we were just enjoying getting to know each other and spending as much time as possible together. It turned into a really good thing, so we decided to do long distance while I am away. Leaving everyone behind will be incredibly hard because I have not been this happy in a long time. I will not lie, after moving out of my apartment for the semester, I was a wreck. It also did not help that the music of choice was by the artist LIGHTS, who with her beautiful, soft vocals, made me cry my eyes out. Right now though, I am okay. I know when I am saying "see you soon" to my parents I will not be able to contain the tears, but I am still excited. In the end, I know I could not be more blessed to have people I will miss here at home. 

In typical Melissa fashion, I still have to pack everything up for the next five months in the next 12 hours and I instead decided to write my first blog post. Will I regret waiting this long to pack? Probably, most definitely, yes. However, on the other side will not only be a long plane ride, but the adventure of the next five months.

xoxo