This is part one of a travel column that will be updated by Simmons students studying abroad. Josie Dent, the Arts and Entertainment Editor of the Voice, is studying abroad in Galway, Ireland, for the full 2024-25 academic year. Please check back for further updates in this column from study abroad students.
When I made the decision to study abroad in Galway, Ireland for an entire year, I began to make a list.
Meeting the new Voice team.
My first year as the Arts and Entertainment editor.
May Day.
My friends’ senior years.
Abigail’s first year as editor-in-chief.
Launching a video segment.
That girl I think I like.
A whole year of radio.
Being a lab agent.
Going back to Sidelines.
I’ve put them in some sort of order here. Really, though, there isn’t a beginning or an end. It’s a list that kept running through my mind, cycling through. It’s everything I’ll miss while I’m in Galway.
My study abroad advisor told me that there would be a moment when I arrived. I’d set everything down, sit on my bed and ask, “Did I make a mistake?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I asked myself that question several times a day, months before I was supposed to leave.
I didn’t tell anyone about my list. I just kept it circling in the back of my mind, like stale water through a fish tank you never clean. I couldn’t face the whys. I didn’t have an answer for the whys.
I lied to everyone when they asked me why the first time – “Why a whole year?” I told everyone I wanted enough time to get settled. I didn’t think a semester would be enough, and I really wanted to do everything.
I promise, this is meant to be a travel column. I just think everyone is owed an adequate amount of explanation before we begin.
I am not the right person to come up with new descriptions of grief. I would just be echoing those who came before me. What I can say is that I was totally unprepared for how crazy it would make me.
After I learned that my great-aunt died, I felt trapped at Simmons. I didn’t know how to be normal anymore.
I started pushing myself to stay up as late as I could, to 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, and continued to wake up for my early morning classes. I realized, as my friends talked about their lives, that I was stuck in time. I hated that they were fine.
I needed to be as far away from Boston as I could be.
The same day my advisor so compassionately sat me down to talk about how we could move forward in class while I was grieving was the day I knew I would make a year abroad happen.
I think I was cruel. I brushed past any discussion of grief so I could talk about what I wanted. I was giddy. It’s gross to write about.
Here is the why. The actual why, not anything made up. I’m not here trying to fill a hole. This isn’t “Eat, Pray, Love.” I just needed to leave. The natural turn of events was, of course, to fly across the Atlantic ocean.
I’m scared. I’m really scared. I’m scared of the normal things, like making friends. I’m also scared of some pretty unusual things. What if I mess up my registration and I get deported?
I hold room for everyone and everything in Boston that I love- everything on my carousel-like list. I’m making a new list, though. It’s short right now because I don’t know what will happen this year, but I’ll make sure it keeps growing.
Here’s what I hope I’ll be able to miss in a year:
New friends.
Volunteering at the radio station.
Drinking under 21.
Traveling through the EU.
Cooking for myself.
Figuring out how to pronounce Irish words.
Spending Christmas traveling.
The Atlantic way.
