“Erin, we have to move here.”
That has been the opening declaration in the majority of correspondence I have gotten from my sister, Dayna Keene ’13, since she left for her semester at sea in mid-January. Her trip includes eleven countries over three and half months; in the last few weeks alone, she has declared our future home to be Dominica, Brazil, and South Africa.
It wasn’t until our flight to Nassau, Bahamas—yes, I was the generous big sister who offered to see her off—that it hit me we had never been apart for this long. I graduated high school in 2008, and although she still had a year left, she was a frequent weekend visitor to my dorm. The next year, she neglected her own dorm entirely for the comfort of my apartment in Collegetown. I didn’t mind; I was happy to soften the blow of being a freshman at Cornell. Plus, she always did the dishes.
At the beginning of this academic year she became an official resident of that apartment. Not only did she do the dishes, but she did my laundry too. We split the cost of groceries and parking; we had a good thing going. Then she hit me with the news that she was going abroad.
Selfishly, I panicked; I was losing my jogging partner, my study buddy—and what about our monthly sushi dates? But this was the opportunity of a lifetime, and time apart might be healthy for us. (There is definitely such a thing as spending too much time together, and we were hovering around that point.) Plus, she would be back for my graduation and her twenty-first birthday, so we wouldn’t miss those milestones.
She has now been gone for more than a month. She’s having the time of her life, and it’s been a vicarious vacation for me as well. In between her many activities—skydiving, swimming with sharks, playing with local children—she manages to e-mail me daily. (I find it difficult to match her stories with news of life as a second-semester senior in Collegetown; “Well, the Palms closed.”)
I can see Dayna maturing with each e-mail—growth she would never have been able to achieve here with me in Ithaca. One day we’ll be able to see (or move to) these countries together, but until then, Skype will suffice. Speaking of which: our next sushi date is scheduled for April 10—only she’ll be eating hers in Japan.
— Erin Keene ’12