Trigger Warning: Mentions of loss and grief
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to spend five incredible weeks studying abroad in Sorrento, Italy. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience that I will always hold very near and dear to my heart.
Last semester, I was so excited to be able to come back and write an article all about how much fun I had, all the people I met, and everything I got to do. While I do still plan on writing that article in the near future, I also want to share a different side of the trip that I haven’t really opened up about until now.
About a month before I boarded my plane to Italy, I lost my papa to a sudden cardiac event. It was a shock, I mean six days prior we had been sitting at the dinner table together, him totally healthy as far as we knew. What made the whole thing hit a whole lot harder was that he was officially the first grandparent I had lost.
I’m not the type of person to really let my emotions show in front of other people, and with how hard his death was hitting my mom, I had kind of just buried everything down the whole week we spent putting together his memorial service. Then once that week was up, life continued as normal, and I continued to just carry on as usual.
Bottling everything up and ignoring it, however, just created a bigger issue. Before I knew it, I was across the world, 4,500 miles away from home, and suddenly being hit with all this grief I didn’t know how to process.
The first few weeks went great. I was happy and excited and having so much fun trying so many new things. Then somewhere around our second weekend, it just hit me. I’m not sure why exactly or what might have triggered it, but I just remember the feeling of being hit with it out of the blue.
Plans we had that night that I had been so excited for I felt like I couldn’t bring myself to do. I remember staying back in the room while the rest of my friends ran to the store and just breaking down sobbing.
After that night, I was just in a slump the rest of the trip. I had my good days, and I really tried so hard to put on a happy face, suck it up, and be present. I also had days where I was physically present, but felt like I was a million miles away at the same time.
Those five weeks were the happiest I’ve ever been while simultaneously being the lowest I’ve ever been mentally.
I’m not great at processing my feelings, and I’m even worse at talking about my feelings, so I really need to give a lot of credit to the incredible friends I made. I know I wasn’t necessarily a ray of sunshine the whole time. Most of them probably knew almost nothing of the situation and had every right to not want anything to do with the negative emotions I was exuding. And yet, each one of them plays a role in why the bad hasn’t outweighed the good when I talk about this trip.
Looking back now, I think I was expecting to be able to put my grief on hold until I got home. Instead, I learned the hard way that you can’t always choose when or where your emotions catch up with you.
I also learned that being sad doesn’t mean you can’t be happy, and having a hard day doesn’t mean you’re having a bad experience. I know my papa would have wanted me to enjoy every second of those five weeks. I’m so grateful for all the memories I made and I’m so excited to eventually share them all with you like I would have with him.
Grief will always be a part of how I remember that trip, but so will the happiness. Losing my papa didn’t take away from that experience, and being happy didn’t mean I wasn’t grieving. Both things could exist at the same time.