My year is ending soon (who would believe that) so I have a lot on my mind.
Today in my american studies class I wrote a little text about these thoughts. Even though I am still here and didn't go back yet, I thought it would be a good idea to post it.
It is hard to describe this feeling. People who don't know how it is to be an exchange student can't relate and others will know what you mean without any explanation.
But how can you put it in words to let your parents and friends back home know what is going on inside of you? How will they ever understand that you cry about going back to them?
My heart is torn apart an I'm divided by two countries I both call home.
Germany - where I've been born and raised. The place with all my childhood memories and people that mean the world to me.
Indiana - the state I fell in love with in such a short amount of time and the place where I met my second family that fills my heart with joy everyday.
It has become my life, my home, my everything.
How can anybody expect me to o leave that all behind? They say you can always come back but it will never be the same as it was before. You will be a visitor instead of somebody who is living there.
People have moved on, started to forget about the girl with the funny accent or the boy who rocked the soccer team.
And you will notice. And it will hurt.
It already started. The sadness that creeps up inside of you when people are making plans for the times when you are already gone. It's painful, not lying. Of course you will never lose the memories or the feeling of home but it comes with a side-effect - The constant missing of a life you will never get back.
In some ways it's like a breakup. A breakup with the person you've become during the year and who will stay behind in some parts.
You will come back to your own life, but not as a whole.
I'm afraid that I will never get over it. But just as a real breakup, I know I will.
Only that there will always be that hole inside of you, even if it gets smaller with time, it will never disappear. You won't feel it everyday but from now to then, there will be something that brings back memories - maybe it' the flag of your state that you see in a movie or a song you used to listen to when you were away. And then the hole will start hurting again, and you will be sad. People around you won't understand and all you want to do is going back in time and hug those people that were part of your year.
Most of us don't realize what it really means to be an exchange student before we come here. We see it as a fun adventure, a short period of time compared to the rest of our lives.We all find out that we are wrong. Even if we don't expect it, we find ourselves lost in the new world, seeing it as our lives now. So it's not just an adventure you can come home from, it is a new life that you begin and that life won't just stop. So what people should know is that as exchange students, we give up parts of ourselves. We get all the amazing experiences and memories in exchange but in the end we will never get back what we have give. Change That is what we all do. We become this new person that had left parts of themselves in the new life and when we come back, we are different.
Your friends don't understand why you act so weird and what happened that you are not the same anymore. And you wonder why it feels so different to be home.
In don't know if it's just but it all feels more like a dream to me. Even when I was sitting in the airplane I still couldn't believe this was really gonna happen. And now - 7 months later that feeling hasn't disappeared. Sometimes I find myself thinking that this can't be real - but it is.
The time is running out. 3 months. That's all I have left. I try my best to make the best out of it but in someways it's like facing my death. The death of a life I love so much.
That's what we all have to go through, that's what makes us exchange students.
And it's worth it.
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