Ci Vediamo Dopo

Sunflower field in Umbria

The entire La Scuola d'Italia group at dinner

After living somewhere for 28 days, you naturally become accustom to your surroundings. The streets and faces surrounding you become familiar and it nears the possibility of becoming “home”.

Driving away from Perugia the morning of July 28^th, I was surprisingly overcome by a mixture of emotions and similar to last summer, my thoughts continuously go back to one thing…change.

Looking back at the past year and how different my life is from the year prior, I am continuously blessed to be able to wonder what lay before me in this journey of life. Similar to the sunflower fields surrounding the entire Umbria countryside that cool summer morning I realized something. Having boarded the bus at dawn, the sunflowers looked sad, and droopy. Their color didn’t look as bright, and they needed a little help to make it through the day. Driving a littler further after sunrise the flowers perked up and began to take in the suns warmth and accept the help they need to shine. Many things in my life are comparable to these sunflowers. In the beginning of a new school year for example, the students are fresh and their minds are not as full as they are by the end of the school year. With a little help, they perk up and are bright and shiny just like a sunflower facing the sunlight.

I left behind a part of myself in Perugia that morning, but that’s just a part of the changing process. I will never forget the new things I saw, the people I was able to meet, the places I was able to go, and those that I have yet to travel to. As I watched another summer pass through the windows of my Sulga bus, I am grateful and looking forward to the new adventures next summer may bring.

While I ended my blog last summer wanting to change the world..(I still want to do that eventually) I am struck by a quote from Ghandi that I found: “As human beings, our greatness lies, not so much in being able to remake the world—that is the myth of the atomic age—as in being able to remake ourselves.”

Until my next adventure…ci vediamo dopo