remember that time

When you just packed up nine months worth of stuff into two suitcases and a Salvation Army donation dumpster…

When you have one more essay to write, but you might die if you read one more article about the politics of desire in the Renaissance…

When you alternate between looking at swimsuits online because you’re finally going to be somewhere warm, and putting on tights and a sweater to go outside because you’re still in Northern Ireland…

When you keep randomly bursting into tears because, guess what, you really did make amazing real-life friends abroad, and you’re just now realizing what that actually means…

When everything you do has “good-bye” attached to it. Good-bye dinner, good-bye movie, good-bye Primark trip…

When you think you might explode with happiness or sadness at any second, but you aren’t even a little bit sure which at any given time…

When OED.com feels like the only thing in the world you can trust…

When you contemplate throwing away your dishes rather than washing them, boxing them up, and donating them…

When the circles under your eyes look like canyons…

That’s two days left of study abroad, one more essay to write, and the knowledge that you have had an experience so strange and hard and wonderful that you may never fully process it, because you blinked and it was gone.