Travel Writings

By Jenna Caruso | Edited by Kayla Muller

I had traveled to Rome once before, with my family a few years ago. My mother, a travel agent, had planned a long three-week trip around the peninsula and the Mediterranean. I was grateful to grow up with parents who took me on vacations and encouraged me to travel. Ever since I left Italy, I craved to return. 

One of the reasons why I committed to Loyola University Maryland, a small private liberal arts school in Baltimore, was because they had such a good study abroad program. When it came to applying for my sophomore year, Loyola walked me through every step, and even took care of some others entirely so that the students didn’t need to worry. Many of my friends were also applying—to Copenhagen, Athens, Newcastle, Leuven. We were all so excited that we were fortunate enough to study in our dream cities at the same time and looked forward to visiting each other during our time apart.    

Prior to my arrival here, I began to have some doubts. There had been a lot of little changes in my life in the year leading up to this, and I had a lot of anxiety about myself, my relationships, and my future. I didn’t even really process that I was leaving for this experience until I was on the plane, flying out of JFK, with twenty-four other classmates from Loyola. Even when I did get off the plane, I disassociated. I tried to come to Rome with no expectations at all, but I soon realized that what I was afraid of in the weeks leading up to this—that I was not ready—turned out to be true.   

For the first few weeks, I was a mess. I only had two roommates, and the odd triple relationship dynamic proved to cause difficulties since the first day of move-in. I was friendly with others from my school, but it was hard to put myself out there without feeling like I was intruding on other friendships. At Loyola, I was so accustomed to living in an apartment with five of my closest friends, and I was struggling to deal with this shift. I felt lonely and homesick, for both my family and Loyola. Every day those first few weeks I cried. Every day I felt like Rome was defeating me. It made me so sad that I wanted to leave the place that I had been dreaming of coming back to. Because really, I did not want to leave.   

But I was also struggling with jealousy and guilt. I felt pressured to have the best time of my life during this experience, and felt like no one had told me about the hardships that came with it. Mostly, I felt that no one else was struggling except me. I felt guilty for not having a good time because I should have been grateful that I had this opportunity to begin with. All my other friends throughout Europe were having such a phenomenal experience, and I couldn’t help thinking that I was doing everything wrong. I was constantly comparing myself to everyone else; I was overthinking the idea that I made the wrong decision, or I was afraid that I would finally get adjusted when it was time for me to go. I felt guilty for wasting time when I had so little of it. I did not want to look back years from now at this period of my life and feel that I did not appreciate it enough.   

But it was hard. The culture shocks, the classes, the loneliness. I felt so out of place. Everything was harder than I expected, and it only got worse when my friendships from Loyola started to crumble because of studying abroad. I needed to give myself a period to cry. I knew my experience studying abroad was going to be a sort of personal renaissance, but what I failed to acknowledge were the growing pains that had to come along with it. In order to gain some things, you had to let go of others. Growth isn’t linear, and I wasn’t the only one changing. And I tended to hold onto everything, people included, a little too tightly.   

In the past, I let jealousy, sadness, and anger consume me so much that I was often closed minded and hateful. This past year, I was learning to change my mindset and be grateful for everything I have rather than focusing on what I didn’t. My first week of classes here, I started going to the JCU counseling center, and it has helped so much. Maybe today was bad, but it was beautiful that I could go to sleep that night, wake up the next day, and it would be different.   

The passage of time, something I used to despise, was now a relief. I finally accepted that things would be bad, and then good, and yes, bad again, but that did not stop the good things from coming. Discomfort never lasts, and maybe neither does happiness, but it does if you know where to find it. You can find it in yourself, in new experiences, new friends, and new places. You can’t let every bad thing dictate your mindset if you don’t let it.   

I have only been here for a little more than a month. Do I think it is going to be smooth sailing from here on out? No. But I am doing better, and still learning how to control the sails.   

Once I started to embrace the eternal city, she began embracing me.