So close to home

I can't believe that I've been here so long already. As I am now in the final full week of being in Rome, I am starting to realize just how much I not only will miss this place, but also how much I miss everyone back home. It's a very strange feeling of longing for two different things that in every sense go against each other. I love the friends I have made here. Becoming so close to so many people this quickly has given me not only comfort as I have been away from my home, but also a renewed faith in humanity. It is sometimes tempting to listen to the people who think and see only the darker parts of the world and the societies within it, but then there are these wonderful rays of light that peak out from the clouds and you suddenly realize that life is so full of surprises that settling even for a moment is just foolish.

This week I am planning on some pretty awesome travel. Tuesday I head out again for Naples to take a lesson with one of the lead tenors at the Teatro di San Carlo which of course should be amazing even if I don't sing my best. Two days later I train my way all the way over to the opposite end of the country for the lovely water world of Venice. Two days spent soaking up possibly the most romantic city in Italy. It should certainly be nothing less than fantastic. Then instead of coming straight back to Rome before I get on a plane like I had intended, I think I will be taking a slight detour to Florence to get just a little taste of Tuscany and find out for myself why everyone says I should go there. Then it's back to Rome for some last minute time with my amazing group of newly bonded friends and amazing, all too soon and yet not soon enough, I'm home, two months later, elated, different, matured in ways I didn't realize were possible, and ready for more life.

I think about the coming year with a mixed feeling of apprehension, excitement, and determination. Some how I have come to my final year of college. Where the last three years went, I will perhaps never know. But in any case, here I am, getting ready for the final turn in the slide, the last lap around the ring, the turning point before the biggest jump I have taken. It will be a year of some of my hardest classes, the biggest auditions of my life, new opportunities, new exploration, stumbles, falls, triumphs, and in the end a new me. Then the next chapter starts and before I know it I will be wondering where this year went. Whatever it comes to in the end, I will take in stride and keep in mind that it is simply where I am meant to be at that moment, where ever that is.