I got my visa! You may now perform the elaborate choreography that you have worked out for the occasion. Leave video proof in the comments. (sidebar: can you? I’ve been singing endless praises of Disqus, but I think that exceeds its capabilities. #wompwomp)

The picture I didn’t get to see is now in my passport (rather than my serial killer photo). Aside from the lack of makeup and stupid hair, it’s a decent picture. I am primarily fond of it because the struggles of that morning are evident on my face. Ultimately, I just look sad and helpless. This is probably a more honest representation. Truth in advertising and all of that. Dear French people: please help this girl answer important questions like, “What is my life?” and “How did I get here?”

J’ai besoin de café.

With this last major hurdle cleared, the items on that to-do list are quickly reducing to “board flight.” (Although “buy ticket” is still on the list. Oops.) Naturally this realization triggers some OH HEY THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING! moments as well as their close companion WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? moments. “How have you not become fluent in French yet? Don’t you study like every day? It has been almost two months. Isn’t that totally enough time? What is wrong with you? Why are you still only limited to the present tense?” Sidebar: I’m a fan of that, actually. The past and the future don’t exist! Live in the now! Your language skills eliminate the option to discuss where you’ve been or what the hell you’re doing with your life!

This also means lots of time thinking about all the people I want to see before I go, and then sadly realizing that I just won’t have the time to see most of those people. The fact that I am conductor on the struggle train makes me particularly sad that my best friend is on that list of people I probably won’t see for another year.

We are pretty adorable BFFs who pretend we are being ironically cheesy when we say things like that but secretly we are completely serious. We have spent about 80% of our friendship living in different time zones, but being on different continents is going to be another matter entirely. It is especially hard because she isn’t here to help me pack and put myself together and send me off. She was obviously there before we left LA, as that is where we met. We moved each other into our Chicago summer schools in high school. She helped send me off to college, Ghana, and my return home after college. We see each other far too infrequently, but we’re always around for the big stuff and this whole “adulthood” thing is really quite unfortunate in that respect. We are apparently supposed to provide for ourselves with our paychecks instead of funding ridiculous road trips. Dislike.

The other (probably more significant) reason this is on my mind is that my other best friend, my little sister, is unintentionally taunting me via Facebook. She is in California with the best friend’s little sister and they are flooding my newsfeed with their adorable adventures. Lion’s got my older brother’s car, which is a millionty times more awesome than the sweet, battle-worn, victim-of-my-driving minivan that I was rocking at sixteen. They are both individually more adorable than the awkward explosion that the we were at their age. It is kind of like watching what would happen if they made the movie version of our high school selves: more attractive cast, less awkward, cooler cars.

But this movie is also devoid of our quirky charm. YOU HEAR THAT, PUNKS? WITHOUT NEARLY OUR LEVEL OF QUIRKY CHARM. You may win the individual adorable awards, but that very fact disqualifies you from our level of BFF Awesome (I need to stop using that term). Being uncomfortable, weird, whothehellarewe, out of place little goons gives you a special level of appreciation for the fact that there is someone in the world who gets what a debacle you feel you are as human being.

(I told my sister that they were a pale imitation and she was offended not by the word “imitation” but by the word “pale.” I had to concede that, as the attractive movie version, they were definitely more tan.)

I have made something of a mess (see also: post-natural-disaster-type mess. Hurricane Sweeney.) of our house as I pack and store and dig through boxes of shit I should have donated or pitched years ago. Among the many gems I have found have been letters and notebooks and farewell art projects from when we left LA.

My favorite part of reading things that I wrote at 14 or 15 is realizing that I was not as smart as I thought I was. (Obviously that concern has been eliminated, now that I have reached the pinnacle of human intellectual achievement. Obviously.) Aside from that, it was good to see that as miserable as my high school experience was, I did have some great people in my life. Hopefully all the high school kids who left such a foul taste in my mouth during my year of substitute teaching (I have yet to find words to do justice to how much I hated listening to those kids eviscerate each other like it was a viable career path) can make that same claim.

Any-tangent-way, the boxes of letters are fundamentally amazing for reasons beyond the endless stream of nostalgia. In spite of how stupid we were, there are some little gems in there. The best friend mailed me a notebook and gel pens. She bought herself the same and we were supposed to fill them and swap. I wrote in it once, seriously abusing the option to alternate colors. The notebook came with two letters explaining the plan, and I think it was a birthday present, maybe? I’m not sure, exactly, but one of the letters talks about my birthday. There’s something about hearing Captain Obvious wisdom in the voice of my best friend that makes it matter in a way it wouldn’t otherwise. “A new period in our lives is going to start and we will have the ultimate say in how and what we are going to do.” I feel like an excessively sentimental asshole, but it is oddly comforting because that’s what she would say if she were helping me pack and put my life in order.

Super pumped about those sweet gel pens…

Of course, she’d also be doing shots with me as we packed so that I could laugh hysterically upon arrival about the way this screwed up the process. I mean, laugh, and then freak out about not having X, Y, and Z vital objects. Maybe this adulthood thing has its perks.

That letter, by the way, ends with “Anyways, I have loads of homework to do…”

So anyways, I have loads of big girl work to do.