The Departure

June 26, 2012

As I sit in the airport ready to leave Charlotte, oddly enough, I am calmer than I have been in months. I am excited to start this new chapter of my life. I am about to experience many firsts: my first apartment, my first time being truly on my own, my first time establishing my own roots, finding my own way, making a life for myself away from my family and friends; and I’m about to do all of this in a different culture, country, and language from my own.

I should be scared out of my mind, nervous, something; but instead, all I feel is a great sense of peace. I am on my way to where I belong: Barcelona.

I arrive to Chicago in a little over an hour and have a 3 hours layover there. I find my gate and take to some light reading (The Vampire Diaries) – aren’t you proud, mom? I make some final calls to my family and final texts to my friends to wish them well and say goodbye. Before I know it, I am boarding the plane which will take me another step further on my journey. As I board and find my seat, I am pleased to see that I have landed an aisle seat near the wings (with PLENTY of leg room); good news for the 8 hour flight ahead of me. I begin to put my purse and suitcase in the overhead compartments as usual and find that the handle on my carry-on suitcase will not go down. I try with no luck as people continue to fill the plane. I ask a nearby steward if there are any larger compartments where my bag might fit (it is just barely an inch too long to lay down long-ways in the overhead compartment with the handle up). With his response, I am quickly brought back to the reality that I am no longer in the South and that I am traveling in coach. “If it won’t fit in the overhead compartment, you’ll have to check it and pay a fine,” comes the cold response. I see a young man about my age in the seat across from me and decide to ask for his help; maybe he will have the strength to lower the handle. He is very friendly and I soon find out why (he is from North Carolina). He helps me by completely braking the handle on the suitcase once and for all (I now have one half of the handle which still won’t go down and the other half which I will never be able to restore to its upright position). I am a bit disappointed at the state of my suitcase until the young man manages to shove it into the overhead compartment =) I am relieved and I soon drift off to sleep.