“Should I study abroad even if I’m an anxious introvert?” Yes.
“Well what if my dog dies while I’m gone?” Presumably, everyone you know has given you the, “Well, what if he dies while you’re at school?” “What if he dies tomorrow?” “You’re gonna pass up the opportunity of a lifetime for a stupid dog?” It’s not stupid. Smeagol the Beagle was eleven and a half. He stole our dinners, got in the trash, and expressed his anal glands whenever he got excited. When I came home from fourth grade crying because Lauren Chandler followed me around hacking away at the sense of self-worth I didn’t even have, he licked my tears away, and sat next to me until I was deep enough in a book to forget about it. Before I left for the airport I kissed Smeagol on the head and said, “Don’t die while I’m gone.” And that stubborn bastard did it anyway. Had I been at school, I probably would have holed up in my room until someone found my rotting corpse (I died of dehydration from crying too much, nothing dark). But since I was in a house in London with seventeen other people, I was taken on a day trip to Greenwich to crack dead dog jokes and have the best bad day in the world. Even in a house full of people, I had space to cry alone in my room, listen to Pearl Jam’s “Last Kiss” on repeat, and think about the last time I ever took Smeagol on a walk. But then I could go downstairs, join a game of cards, and forget about it. I also had space to cry alone in my room, listen to Pearl Jam’s “Last Kiss” on repeat, and remember that time my siblings and I all gave him a bath together and argued over who had to scrub his wiener. And then I could go downstairs, join a game of beer pong, and forget about it. Sometimes I got to control the music during cards, so I played Pearl Jam’s “Last Kiss,” on repeat, which was met with a chorus of “STOP PLAYING THE DEAD DOG SONG!” “But how will I meet with my therapist?” The internet, dumbass. Despite being childless, she’ll use that quintessential mom voice to say, “Look at you being social!” And that you’re coping really well with the death of your dog. “But what if I have social anxiety?” If it’s that bad, you’re probably familiar with the term “exposure therapy.” Go sit in the common room and read your book in the mornings. Wait for other people to trickle in and invite you places. If they don’t, keep sitting and reading. In the evenings, sit in the common room and scribble melodramatic letters to your favorite dead person (mine’s Kurt Cobain—sorry Great Grandma). Dear Kurt, There’s so many people in here and I’m pressed against the corner of the couch and I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. My little sister sent me a picture of Smeagol’s urn on the kitchen counter. He’s not slinking around the house looking for food scraps anymore. He’s just a pile of ashes. Love, Madison “But what if I get homesick?” Then you probably have a good home! And it’s full of people telling you to stop being a dumbass and fill out the study abroad application. Besides, you’ll be more homesick when you actually get home because you’ll see your beagle’s empty collar collecting dust on the bookshelf and you’ll remember when you were twelve and finally convinced your parents to let Smeagol sleep in your room, and he took up more than half your twin bed, and you hardly slept at all. But every time you rolled over, the digital clock lit up his sleeping face, and you knew everything would be alright. “What if no one likes me?” Chill. Read your book. Write letters to dead people. “What if I hate everyone there?” You won’t. But some nights you’ll get a little drunk and start giggling, and a couple people will raise an eyebrow, and you’ll say, “It’s nothing,” but you remember when you were a kid and you would lay face down on the playroom carpet and pray to God to kill you painlessly in your sleep. And you knew he wouldn’t do it, because your imaginary friends never did. And you didn’t want to do it yourself, at least not yet, but deep down you knew you’d be lucky to make it to fourteen. Now you’re twenty-one and you don’t know exactly why, but the whole thing makes you laugh. “But what if I have self-imposed dietary restrictions?” I already wrote about that. It’s easy to eat meatless when you think about the fact that you don’t really know what the vet did with your dog’s corpse. “What do I do about my prescription antidepressants?” Start grappling with your insurance company now. The representatives will contradict each other and make you run between doctors and pharmacies and no one will give you three months’ worth of Prozac. Tell them your dog is old, and he might die while you’re gone, and they won’t give you enough medication because of some bureaucratic bullshit. Tell them you can see the headlines now: FLORIDA BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD IMPLICATED IN DEATH OF TWENTY-YEAR-OLD GIRL. “What if I’ve never been able to enjoy a vacation without some part of me longing to be home?” Don’t think of it like a vacation; it’s like going to college. Bring your giant blanket that’s still covered in dog hair. Pack all your colored pencils for the two times in the semester you’ll feel like drawing. Call your parents and tell them you love them. Bully your siblings into coming to visit you because one of them is an adult now with an adult job that makes adult money, and if they don’t spend that adult money on maintaining familial relationships, why have a career at all? It is super disorienting to be dropped in the middle of an unfamiliar city. Especially if you have the real-life directional sensibility of a child who sucks at Denny’s menu mazes. But little by little, it will start to feel as if you’ve lived in London your whole life. First you can get to the coffee shop without your map. Then you realize everything you need to know about the tube is written on the signs, and it was actually designed to effectively move people through the city, not panic directionally challenged suburban central Floridian tourists. Before you know it, your sibling will get off the plane and you’ll say, “Alright we’re taking the District Line to Charing Cross, then we’ll transfer and take the Northern Line to Goodge Street.” And they’ll say, “Didn’t you get lost on your way home from school once? The school we went to everyday for nine years?” Yes, I did. Probably because Maitland doesn’t have those neat little navigational posters telling me where I am every five feet. “None of this made me feel any better.” Remember when you thought you wouldn’t live past fourteen? These are all bonus years, baby! Nothing matters! Humanity’s going extinct! In the grand scheme of things, three months without your dog isn’t a lot. (Unless one dies. Rest in peace my sweet Smeagy Beagy.) “Well what if I’m perfectly content with the way things are now and— “Don’t interrupt me, Boldface. There is a non-zero chance that studying abroad will fix all the problems you’re struggling with now. There’s no chance if you stay home. So, stop reading my nugatory ramblings posing as advice and fill out the study abroad application. Imagine yourself thirty years down the line in a cold white cubicle that smells faintly of ham, wondering what would have happened if you’d just turned in that little stack of papers.
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