Writing Again... From St. Petersburg This Time

Shawn Colvin's Twilight tunes out the airplane thrum. My hands are clammy from the slightly overly-heated air, but I grasp my pen a bit tighter and press my thoughts to the pages of my journal. The four of us (St. Petersburg-bound Colby students) sit, slightly cramped, in the middle aisle of this fancy two story plane. The stolen hotel pen is gripped tightly in my hand as my mind roams the cabin around me. On my left, Victoria sits next to the aisle, her feet slightly angled outwards. We boarded too late to fit her suitcase into the overhead bin, so she smooshed it partway beneath the blue patterned seat in front of her. Her light fingers tap at the seat-back screen, picking out music from the random flight selection, then her eyes dart back to the book in her hands and photos on her phone (I'm only slightly jealous of her multi-tasking abilities). She seems to have settled in for the trip, much calmer now than she was saying goodbye to her parents and walking through security. My eyes jump two rows ahead at the sound of giggling children, then dart back when I notice Victoria's attention is on them as well; her mouth moves into a slight smile. We may be exhausted from the hours of travel we've already put behind us, but our excitement for the adventure to come keeps our spirits high.

My hair won't stay tucked behind my ear so I take a moment to fuss with my braid. My hands fiddle with the slightly static strands while my mind wanders its way a day or two back to breakfast in Boston with dad, and the flamboyantly gay waiter who told me my hair looked like it could be on a Pinterest page (strangely one of the nicest compliments I've received to date, and one that my dad and I enjoyed laughing over multiple times during our drop-Shona-off-for-her-St.Petersburg-flight weekend). I smile at the accumulation of memories from the wonderful, if short, trip, and finish up my plait. The Residence Inn pen finds its way back into my hands, and I begin to write once more.

Faiyaz and Alan sit to my right, both occupied by Alan's book of Russian language tips. I laugh to myself as I empathize with their struggle to print Russian letters, a struggle I was all too familiar with a few months ago. I admire their dedication to this trip and the work they are putting in to get some of their pronunciations right. I give a suggestion here and there but am keenly aware that I could be steering them in the wrong direction; my Russian language skills extend the basics of declension charts and simple verb conjugations, with a few random vocab words thrown in to make everything more interesting.

It's not long before Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud drags me back into memories of the end of my fall semester, and I struggle to focus myself. I'm tired, and my ability to put coherent sentences together is deteriorating.

OUCH! The guy in front of me just reclined his seat all the way back and slammed me in the head. Fiyaz laughs at me while I glare silently at the back of the chair in front of me, rubbing my forehead and trying to reposition myself to write again. I grasp an idea, and go with it:

This trip is a rather sharp contrast to my last study abroad experience. I feel relaxed, in control, and more prepared this time (which is odd because I've done much less orientation work for this trip than I did for my year in Marbella). When I dig a little bit deeper into my honest memories of Marbella, it becomes pretty clear to me the reason for a lot of the stress and fear I faced in the early stages in Marbella: unrealistic expectations. And that's not to say that I have low expectations for St. Petersburg, nor that Marbella was a disappointment. Two years ago I struggled to balance my expectations of exchange life with the rather difficult reality of not knowing Spanish and not being automatically the most popular person in school. The same problem got me again my senior year of high school. College apps were HARD and my acceptance expectations weren't met: cue unhappy teenage girl. So when it came to accepting my admittance to Colby, I decided to focus less on expectations and more on living each moment as it was. And now here I am, off to St. Petersburg, having skimmed over the itinerary and packed all my warmest clothes. I'm ready. To be honest, I have no clue what is about to come at me. I haven't even gone so far as to Google the city and scroll through pictures online. I know that my mind makes great jumps and spins intense webs, and I've decided not to clutter myself with that craziness anymore. I won't let my brain twist the city into something that could only ever exist in my head, and then expect my standards become tangible in the city. When I get there, I will see it, explore it, sense it and let it become part of me. But until I do, St. Petersburg will remain a mystery. One that I am so very, very excited to see.

I look back at the pages of journal that I've filled: I'm writing again. I take a moment to consider this, pen tapping against the pull down tray table, and a smile spreads across my face. Life is good; it may be messy and wibbly-wobbly at times, but I feel like it's heading in the right direction. My path doesn't seem to have linear tendencies like I once expected it to, but every stop I've made along the way since my acceptance at Colby has been filled with more laughter, smiles, and fantastic challenges that I ever could have predicted for myself. I sit on this flight and, for the first time in a long while, I write. And that action, in itself, feels like happiness.

Love from St. Petersburg,

Shonabell