My grandfather called me from America the other day. When I picked up the phone, he started the conversation by saying, "Well, Kate...only 57 more days to go!" My stomach lurched. My grandparents had been keeping a steady countdown to my return to America since probably before I even left for South Africa. But when they remind me how little time I have left, it is always disorienting.
I think this is becoming the hardest part for me, studying abroad. I've been in South Africa for three months now. Since the first day, I tried to not think of myself as a visitor to this country, instead I adapted and changed as if I was there to stay forever. On the one hand, I think I have totally maximized my study abroad experience to its absolute fullest. On the other hand...how am I supposed to leave?
When I was preparing to come here, the journey home never figured prominently in my plans. And it couldn't have; you're first time traveling you can really only think one day at a time. And each day here has been amazing. But the day that I leave, I can't even conceptualize what I'm going to be feeling, what I'm going to be thinking, how I am going to handle saying good-bye to a country that now feels like home, to say good-bye to friends I may never see again. It seems like no orientation, travel guide or advisor can prepare you for that moment, which is why I think I'm terrified of it.
Of course, falling in love with another country certainly complicates things. For the first time in my life I can honestly say I have no idea where I am going to be living in my future. Perhaps because all of my life I didn't doubt it would be someplace in America. For whatever reason the concept of graduating and then moving to a foreign country is one hardly promoted in America. European schools, and even schools here in South Africa, place emphasis on "gap years"; taking time after you graduate to travel through other countries, to even live in other countries before settling down into the adult world. But in America, this emphasis is lacking. So coming here and realizing that I, in fact, do quite well living in other countries, has come as a bit of a shock. This does not mean that there haven't been periods of homesickness, or that I'm not excited to go home and see my friends and family. Nor does this mean that if I packed my bags and moved to the African continent, I would have the same kind of amazing time I've had here. I have a feeling that studying abroad in another country is a tad different (and much easier) than living in another one. Its just that now there is yet one more option open to me when I graduate, one more opportunity I feel I must explore.
In an odd way, its almost frustrating. You think that the only decisions you'll have to be making are the type of job you find, or whether you'll go for your masters or which kind of roommate you'll have in your apartment. I've hardly ever thought about which country that apartment would be in.
How many more decisions am I going to be expected to make?
This is only one aspect of my study abroad experience that has made me re-write my future plans. But I think its an important one. Before I came everyone gushed to me about how much study abroad was going to change me; about how it was going to make me realize things about myself I could never have at Washington College. And I have, all of the things they say about what you feel abroad, they're true. It has changed me. I have changed, and grown, and matured and been given the kind of eye-opening perspective that typically comes with a mid-life crisis. I have been living in probably the world's most beautiful country with the most beautiful people. And I just have no idea how I'm supposed to get on that plane.
The other day I called a friend in America and spoke to him about some of the things I've just written about. He made me promise to him that I wouldn't forget these new feelings and new desires; he made me promise that every change I've been through won't be forgotten when I land in the Philadelphia airport. I thought this was an unbelievably poignant thing to say. So many people have an experience like mine and then, 30 or 40 years from now, will wistfully recall their feelings, which have evaporated in the hustle and bustle of the adult world and its subsequent responsibilities.
This must be the true challenge of study abroad. It is terrifying to accept that my entire life has now been turned upside down. It is terrifying to think that now nothing can be the same. But if I don't accept these things, the whole experience will have gone to waste. And that will be truly unforgivable.
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