Goodbye, Canada.

Leaving is scary. I have two days left in Canada before I embark on what will be, by far, the most precariously venturesome things I've ever decided to do. I'm leaving my home country—for real this time.
I've been away, in a manner of speaking, for two years already. But an American boarding school only seven hundred kilometres from home is hardly Belgium. At school, I'd talk to my parents often, I'd see them every few weeks... Sure, there were times when I'd go a week without talking to them, but I knew, that whole time, that they were simply a phone call and an eight hour drive away. I knew, if I needed them, they'd be in Minnesota at the drop of a hat.
They can't simply buy an expensive flight and fly two hours to Toronto from my Northern Ontario home, then to Montreal, and from there to Bruxelles National. Even once you land in Bruxelles, you still need to drive to my new hometown of Villers-Perwin.
I'm truly on my own this time.
And that's a scary thought! I'm sixteen. True, I'm not your average sixteen year old girl. Most girls my age would hang out in a Starbucks, drinking turtle lattes (decaf, skim-based, extra-frothy) talking about boys named Chaz and Mike, content for an entire afternoon. I spent my afternoon today listening to Puccini and attempting to create viscous metaphors and flowery language to impress you, my reader.
I'm vivacious, rather charming, splendid and delightful and I'm so often told it. I say these things at the risk of sounding conceited. I impress many of my parents' adult friends with my polite forwardness and ability unheard of for most teenagers to express a profound opinion intelligently and without using like as a verb.
But none of these things mean jack when I'm abroad. When I can't use my French skills, such as they are, to create a bosoming conversation with my host parents' adult friends. Eventually, I will. But not right away.
And Minnesota isn't too far from home. I have never spent a Christmas away from my parents. I have never not been home for Thanksgiving, for New Years, for Spring Break... These adventures on which I'm about to embark will lead me to a new era of life.
The era of being truly fluent in French. The era of internationalism. The era of my adulthood.
Because, yes, this is the first step for me. This is akin to becoming of age: I'm simply accepting the responsibilities while not being able to vote.