The Permanence of Goodbye

At 6:15 AM on Tuesday morning December 15, 2008, the Norwegian part of my Norwegian Adventure officially came to an end as I left Oslo for the semester. To be completely honest, the reality of me leaving has not really set in yet and I suspect it wont for a few weeks yet. My last week in Oslo was an incredible whirlwind of activity and emotion that I think has left me in a bit of a haze...while all of my friends were finished with exams and beginning to relax and celebrate another semester gone, I still had to remain focused as I had an exam on Monday morning...I had two choir concerts on Sunday night after a full day of rehearsal on Saturday (*ed note* I did not know until I arrived on Sunday night that we actually had two concerts...I had been under the assumption we had only one...I suppose those details got lost somewhere in translation...ha hah!)...I had to pack up my belongings and check out of my room on Monday afternoon...and on top of all that I had the strangely difficult and foreign task of saying potentially lifelong goodbyes all week. I would argue though, that it was more than just a country or city I was leaving or saying goodbye to, but a home, friends, routine, and a life that I have come to know and love over the last 5 months. Am I ready to leave?...I am not sure. Am I sad?...of course. Am I excited to return home?...yes. Will I return to Norway?...someday definitely. These, however, are not the questions and answers that I have been and am struggling with...rather, it is my inability to explain why I have to live so far from all of the people and friends of this past semester? Why do some of my closest friends have to live in Australia or Norway or Ireland or Canada (ok, so Canada isnt so far, but its still a flight away), while I live in the US? Despite what I might like to think, oceans, continents, and hemispheres now separate me from very close friends...yet it is not simply the physical distance that I struggle with, but the permanence of that distance. Sure we can visit each other or vacation together somewhere...and the internet will provide us with a very effective way to stay connected...but the life, the atmosphere, the community that we have formed in just 5 short months is something that cannot and will not be recreated. Never again will I be able to just pop into U1 and grab a coffee with any number of good friends. Never again will I sing in Angelos Koret with a huge number of amazing and welcoming Norwegians. Never again will I be able to run around Lake Sognsvann with a friend. Never again will I sit around playing Risk in a student apartment at Sogn Studentby. Those routines, activities, and highlights are nothing more than just great memories now...and that thought, that permanent separation, is by far the hardest part about this semester ending.