Study abroad challenges and changes you, the person you think you are when you arrive and the person you become after your abroad experience. I’ve learned throughout this experience that I’m a very sensitive and emotional person who has trouble letting things go. I hold on so tightly to my past and while it brings back good memories, it sometimes brings up sad, distressing, and upsetting memories. I spent years reminiscing about the house I grew up in in Massachusetts and trying to dislike my new home in Florida that now I cry every time I pass by the exit to my hometown in Massachusetts. When I lost a black coat I bought in Turkey (attached to a great memory of shopping for the first time with Turkish friends) I was extremely upset and couldn’t let it go, thinking that if I had done something differently I wouldn’t have lost it. Something happened this semester at home that hit me hard, something I never would have thought would bring me to tears. I feared something that has defined my life for the past few years would come to an end and that I would have to let go of it completely. Remembering memories can be wonderful, but always replaying some of them can be painful. I feel like some of them poke and prod me and never want to leave.
I thought that if I could spend eight months away from my parents and eleven months away from the US in Turkey when I was 16, I could last nine months away from my family and the US at 22. I thought that if I didn’t get homesick at 17, I couldn’t get homesick at 22. And I did. I will return home for Christmas for two weeks, missing a long-planned trip to Tanzania. We are all human and have feelings, feelings that we sometimes cannot let go of, cannot control. Although I spent years trying to convince myself that Florida would never really be home, I have changed my feelings, but also home has changed for me. Home is where my family is and it is an important place in my life more than ever.
We remember our pasts, how we dealt with difficult times, when we loved someone, when we had happy memories, but we cannot become the same person we once were. We cannot see the same things, the same people, and the same memories through that lens of our life. We only watch the events play over and over again, maybe feel the same feelings again. But we are no longer the same person, we cannot change the past. We must look forward and keep walking, learning from our experiences. It may take a few days to learn, maybe years, or even a whole lifetime. I want to move forward but I never want to forget the past. Instead I must remember to learn from the past and let other things go.
Study abroad is not a perfect picture of the sunset over the mountains, a glass of wine in a nice restaurant, a perfectly posed picture of friends, it’s hard. It’s the best and the worse, at the same time. Remove yourself from everything you’ve ever known and it’s bound to be difficult, but in the end it becomes one of the most rewarding experiences of your life.
Last week was Thanksgiving and I’m thankful for Jordanians making me and my American friends feel welcome here. Jordanian friends, American friends, international friends, my host families abroad. My friends at home, home in Florida, home in Massachusetts, home in Turkey. My international friends who came to the US, I hope I made you feel welcome. I’m mostly thankful for my family, especially my parents who supported me when I adventured to Turkey on an 11-month journey when I was sixteen. You know as I do that it completely changed my life. Thank you.