Travel Pathology

Walking up through campus and spotting a girl from my cohort in the distance, we make eye contact and start waving towards each other.

“Hi, how are you?” I call out.

“Good, how about you?” she responds.

“Doing well, see you…”

Wait, when will I see her again? I wanted to say “in class,” but that’s not accurate. Classes have finished for the term, and the remainder of the program will be dedicated to our dissertation work.

Second term officially concluded when I submitted my final paper for my Person-Centered Care course. I wasn’t sure how to process it all. The second term is over? Only one more term left?

I check and recheck to ensure all of my assignments are turned in correctly. I verify their titles and confirm that what I submitted is indeed what I intended to submit. Standing from my desk, I rest my hands behind my back as I gaze out the window, observing the neighborhood below.

What now?

Well, I do have a hundred pages left to read of All the Light We Cannot See before book club on Thursday. I’ll start with that. Deadlines are never really done; they simply change form. And I suppose there is wine to be enjoyed, and hair appointments to be made – in Spain. Since the pound sterling is much stronger than the euro currently, it makes financial sense to run a few errands in Seville this weekend. Then, we can have some tapas afterward, sipping Rioja and celebrating a birthday.

And there are picnics to plan beneath cherry blossom trees, ones that will follow tennis matches that summon all the curse words from my mouth. Oh, and I have sonatas to master and Italian to study, so I can make friends when I inevitably purchase my Italian home by the sea.

Oh, and a dissertation to write.

I better get started.

I frown to myself and begin the next sequence of tasks the way I always do, with a snack.

Settling back into my favorite blue chair in the bay window, I give in to my scrolling addiction to discover that Taylor Swift has released a new album, and it’ll take over two hours to listen to it all.

I better get started.

I raise a glass of 30-year-old burgundy to the goodness of it all.

Here’s to the cherry blossoms. To completing two terms. To having just one more to go. To a city that isn’t so new to me anymore. To my first spring in the UK. To the upcoming summer. To not knowing what I’m going to do next.

Cheers to it all! Cheers to the end of term!