I didn’t mean to lose sight of my desire to study abroad when I first transferred to Rollins. I merely forgot about the goal as I navigated my way around Rollins life. Somewhere in my second semester, it occurred to me: “I’m a junior, I’m graduating in a year – shouldn’t I do the very thing that convinced me to go to Rollins?” It was now or never.
In a little over three weeks, I’ll be heading for France, my imagination’s number one destination for idyllic day-dreaming. Admittedly, Aix wasn’t my first choice; I distinctly remember sitting in my parents’ bedroom, scrolling through study abroad programs, and making a face as I read over the Aix program, my only option for a trip to France, since I didn’t have enough of the language down to apply for the Paris program. Why would I want to go to a place in France if it wasn’t Paris? But slowly, reality led me to realize that Aix was the perfect kind of adventure for who I am: a small town mixing past and present art and architecture, home to one of the most innovative artists of all time, filled with the picturesque fields and markets I’ve always dreamed about, and only a train ride away from the hectic life in Paris. The journey toward this moment has been long and exhausting, and honestly, there have been too many instances where I thought all of my hard work was for naught. But it wasn’t.
I have a poster of a cafe in Aix hanging on a wall in my bedroom. My mother bought it for me in one of those moments of devastation when finances seemed to fail me, and she told me to think of it as a tool for positive visualization. If I looked at it, if dreamed about it enough, I could make it happen. God would work out the rest.
I really hope I find that cafe while I’m abroad. I’d like to give it a ‘thank you.’