#aro-ace-protagonists

lucky… i am both not finished and not high on 5 hour energy

same though?

In less than three days, I will be in a plane flying over the Atlantic Ocean, en route to The Netherlands.  The past few days have been incredibly hectic and full, but have completely flown by.  I’ve been scrambling to see as many friends as I can and say as many face to face goodbyes, while at the same time working on packing and get my life in order.

One of those goodbyes took place over the span of a weekend.  On Saturday the 16th I took a bus to Boston, where my best friend and wife, Emily, met me at the bus/train station.  I spent 2 days with her at Brandeis, and over that time I met the majority of her school friends (except for Ryan because he’s a poop and was getting a new dog) and had the opportunity to see most of my friends that also grace the halls of Brandeis University.  Two of my favorite experiences of the weekend was surprising one of my best friends and babies from my time in NFTY, Rachel.  Emily and I maaaaay have lied to her and told her I wasn’t coming, only so that I could surprise her and blanket her in my love.  I also received a surprise over the weekend; when Emily was in a capella practice, my friend Lee (also from NFTY) ‘babysat’ me.  My surprise was one of my best friends from NFTY, Allie, who I hadn’t spoken to in ages.  Allie is the type of friend where you can go forever without talking and pick up where you were in an instant.  I wasn’t sure if I would be seeing her while at Brandeis, so being surprised by her and spending a few hours with both of them was wonderful.

I’m actually really lucky that I have so many friends like Allie, in the sense where I can pick up where I left off after months of not talking.  Emily is one of those friends.  She and I are used to spending great amounts of time apart, as she spent an entire school year in Israel my freshman year of college, and she goes to school several hours away from me.  Another one of my friends, also from NFTY (there’s a theme here, isn’t there?  Apart from the fact Emily’s not from NFTY...), Morgan, is the same way.  We go for months without talking and then the conversations flow just as naturally and there’s lots of weird selfies and laughter and hugs.  The day after I got home from Brandeis I saw Morgan.  Now, I wanted her to meet the boyfriend (I have one of those, his name is Henry, more on him later) and some of my school friends, and so she and I went out to school.  We got lunch and dinner with my friends Allie and Laura, with Henry, and hung out around school.

Tuesday was the day that it really hit me that I was going abroad and leaving everything: my family, my friends, my boyfriend... for almost five months.  I broke down crying for the first of five times thus far, and once I had recovered from my crying, Morgan and I went back to Jersey, and I bid farewell to her.

Wednesday I went back out to PA to see my school friends one last time.  I had lunch with my friends Tali, Mandy, and Esther, which was super nice, especially since Tali was abroad last semester so this was my only time seeing her.  And then I hung out with Allie and Henry and Zoey, among other people the rest of the night.  I slept over in PA, and had brunch with Henry this morning.  Within these 36 hours I cried another four times by the way.  After brunch I said goodbye to my boyfriend... potentially for the last time until May, and went home.