Goodbye Until Tomorrow

Friday, July 29

I can’t believe I’m leaving Oviedo tomorrow.

I can’t believe I officially finished classes today, including getting a diploma.

I can’t believe I’ve already said goodbye to friends from classes for the last time, and friends from Mizzou until next month.

I can’t believe a month of my life has flown so quickly that I don’t remember where all it’s gone.

I can’t believe I’m eating my last dinner with my host mom tonight.

Overall, I just can’t believe how the time as flown. Wasn’t I just arriving and trying to get a feel for my host mom and classes and Oviedo and all of it? And now it’s over.

There are so many things I’m excited to go back for: my family and friends, getting to see my dogs, training starting next Saturday, new residents, playing with my dogs, RHA for this year, getting my toe fixed, hugging my dogs, and all of it.

But there are so many things I’ll miss here as well: hanging out in the parks around Oviedo, coca-cola light, maxibon cookies, laughing to myself every block because there’s always a new grocery store, the view from my window, the beautiful sights of Oviedo, Spanish people and their good-natured, too-relaxed, deadlines-schmedlines attitudes, and all of the rest.

So the title of this blog is a lyric from a good song. The lyrics are a great summary of how I’ve been feeling today. The song goes: “Goodbye until tomorrow, goodbye until the rest of my life, I have been waiting, I have been waiting for you.”

I have been waiting for this experience all of my life, and now that it’s over, I know it isn’t really over. The reality is that it’s only goodbye until I figure out how to come back, until I spend more time here, until I travel again.

So Oviedo, goodbye, and thanks for the wonderful memories, the new friends, and the summer of my life.