I've been thinking about you a lot these last few days. I've been trying to recall my final week in CR nearly 8 years ago and I'm having trouble.
*If you're unaware, he's been in Spain since September through a study abroad program and will be returning before X-mas.*
You've done an amazing job detailing your experience in your blog. I've loved every bit of your writing as you've worked to express your heart and what that place has done to it. I recognize and I hope you do as well that what you've typed and submitted into the eternity that is the Internet is not as much a recounting for your friends and family as much as it is for yourself. You'll be grateful that you blogged about it. Trust me. I wish blogging had been more popular 8 years ago. Perhaps I wouldn't be having such a hard time remembering my journey abroad if I had kept a better and more permanent log of it.
There will be a time not long from now, where you'll long to go back. Maybe you'll be married with kids, maybe you'll be just beginning a career that won't let you travel. But something will make you Desirae a visit. And you won't be able to go.
There's something to be said about living alone. Independence, self sufficiency, responsibility, it's such a big step in a young persons life. It's one that in our culture is expected and anticipated. Most people we know have done it. Few that we know still live with their parents at our age(s). But it's a whole other animal to leave your independent life and your family and your friends and cross oceans to live alone, somewhere you've never been.
I remember little things. Little things that made the journey so much more meaningful. Like the pizza shop near campus that would serve made to order calzones. Or the little kids that lived down the street. Their mom made and sold chocolate covered bananas out of her home. Delicious. Or the farmers market that stretched for nearly 2 miles of open parking lot every weekend. Riding the bus everywhere, walking everywhere, the ridiculousness convenience of the ocean and a Caribbean filled weekend. These are small things that will reside in my heart and my mind forever as keepsakes. Parts of my semester that I hold dearly.
And then I remember the loneliness. After the rush of new friends, new languages, new food wore off, I realized I was alone. You go from the ecstasy of this leap of independence you've taken to sudden depression from not having anyone to share it with. You think "wow I have so much to share with my family, my friends, when I return". But then you realize nobody's going to really care about my time here. They're not going to find joy in my description of my quaint apartment or the pastry shop that I visited daily after class. They're not going to relish in my experiences of riding a bus 3 hours standing to get to the beach every other weekend. And I know that they won't care really about all the amazing people I met from other countries that introduced me to so many cultures and personalities. It's just you. It was just me. I was there for me as you have taken this trip for yourself.
You'll return, you'll have great stories to tell and pictures to show. We'll act interested and excited for you. But then we'll move on. We'll find other things to talk about, like our own lives, the trips we've taken, the things that have kept us busy since you've been gone. And life for us will go back to normal; with you in school in Atlanta and us here waiting for your next visit.
I don't write this to get you down. Understand that these past few months have probably been the most important of your life. Not because you traveled abroad, not because you leaned a new language. But because you took time to see things, do things, meet people all.by.yourself. With no ability of returning until your time ends. And that is the perfect environment for you to learn who you are. Or at least to start learning who you are. To be physically and emotionally stranded in a place so far removed from normal life. To be able to strip away all the crap of the everyday and focus on yourself. To have time alone where nobody is expecting you. Where there isn't a load of responsibilities to take care of. It's just you, your thoughts, your doubts, in a place that you'll tell people about but who will never truly understand.
Cherish this last week. Soak as much Spain up as you possibly can. Write until your fingers bleed. I wish I had had someone to tell me these things. I wish that I could turn back time and chronicle all the amazingness and loneliness that I experienced in my time abroad.
I love you and I can't wait to see you next week, to hear more about your journey and the lessons you've learned. Take care brother and safe travels home.
Love, Becca
