One day, early in the pandemic, I was on the phone with my mother back in Paris talking about where I should go. She reluctantly told me to stay where I was, as the pandemic in France was worse at the time. That crushed my world. Going to study abroad was always daunting but never dreadful, like bungee jumping. But suddenly it felt like my rope was cut, my only safety had disappeared from the surface of the Earth, and I felt an existential dread I never faced before. I felt stateless, bound to no law, entitled to no right.