Time to Read:
I just walked out of my last Japanese class…
which means I just walked out of my last class of the trip…
which means, after 6 months of studying language across the globe, I have officially ended the scholastic linguistic education of my trip…
which means I’m d-u-n-n dunn! (you thought I was gonna forget that extra “n”, huh? I haven’t forgotten THAT much English 🙂
Don’t worry, I do know it is spelled, “done”, (though I think we can all agree that is a questionable spelling choice – I actually have a whole other post to write in the works about that). And, it is also true that my brain, while making room for all of these other languages has occasionally kicked out an English word or two and I have found myself struggling to find a word that a native English speaker should not struggle to find.
It is well worth the cost.
I can’t believe it. I mean, I can believe it. This was always the end goal, but still, no matter how much focus I give to accomplishing a dream, to get to the finish line is always a thing of glory.
I always try to live my life with the following question in mind – “In my final moments on this (or any other) planet, when drawing my final breath, what will I most want to see in my rear view?”
Inside that are all of the accompanying questions, What will bring my mind and my heart the most peace to know that I did my best to live my life well? What does that even mean to me? What are the things I will have been glad that I did? What are the things I will have been proud that I did? Who will I be proud if I managed to be? What dreams will I hope that I at least pursued wholeheartedly, whether or not I accomplished them? What kind of person did I try to be – whether or not I succeeded every second or in every situation? Tomorrow’s are never promised. How did I use the ones I was lucky enough to get?
My answers consist of a short sentence with simple hopes, alongside a very long list with lots of dream and all sorts of ambitions. The short list is, I hope I will have done my best to be a good, decent person, to love well and to be me. While the results of such aspirations will have to go in the “always a work in progress” category, I do know I am doing the best I know how, making mistakes and doing my best to learn from them and make different ones the next time around. As for that other list – the long, ambitious one – today, I get to put a checkmark in a box. Oh, the satisfaction of that one tick stroke. And, I have begun the process of putting a big old check mark through one very big box. That check mark will be completed after a great swim, a big hike and a long plane ride home.
But, today, a box is definitely getting checked.
What a feeling.
I was supposed to attend classes through tomorrow, but, I realized, with a nice little pile of “to do’s” to get done before meeting up with my swim group tomorrow at 4PM, I was ready to say goodbye to my classes today.
So that’s that. And that’s it. It’s done.
Wow. Wow. Wow.
I did it.
I did it!
I DID IT!
Je l’ai fait. J’ai réussi!
¡Lo logré!
Ich hab’s geschafft!
Ce l’ho fatta!
Я сделала это!
我成功了！Wǒ chéng gōng le!
やったよ！Yatta yo!
I did it.
After 6 months of intensive study across the globe, I don’t know that I can yet say that I’ve accomplished my goal to be able to confidently say that I am a polyglot.
But I am definitely a polyglittle.
And that makes me happy a polyglot. 🙂
Now, to the sea, I go!
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