Study Abroad: Transition Home

The adjustment period was littered with phantom memories, haunting me as I tried to return to a sense of normality.

But I've found time can heal most anything
And you just might find who you're supposed to be

-Fifteen, Taylor Swift

It was an extremely emotional ordeal: the night before, the day of, and the weeks after. I won’t burden you with every sweet/sour detail, but I will share a few notable ones. For those of you reading who had the same experience, please delight in the fact that you weren’t alone.

Today, I am reflecting on the transition between my semester abroad and my return home. I often linger on that memory; wishing to reset the past year and go back to that day. Do everything again between then and now. Do more with my time. And I know it’s the age-old question: would you go back and redo things if you could?

No, I needed it. The adjustment period was littered with phantom memories, haunting me as I tried to return to a sense of normality. I don’t think I could have recovered or moved on in any other way.

The thing I constantly compared it to was a Mii character. On the old Wii games, when you picked up your character, it would flail and shake. Unwitting to the scared little icon, you could freely move it from one place to another as you saw fit.

I embodied it.

Although, in my case, the plane was the cursor. In the end, you have no choice. Your time is over, you can’t delay. Even if you want to stay, the plane ticket is waiting, time is ticking down, and you are left choiceless.

That day, I felt little emotion. Everything was on pause. I left my apartment at 5:30 am, booked a taxi to El Prat, and gazed through the window, silently saying my goodbyes. Even though the tears welled up in my eyes, I never let the floodgates open. They just sat there, frozen in time. All I could do was sit and stare. I’m sure it was a sight to see for anyone who noticed me in the various airports. I stayed like that… for weeks.

“The last few days were a blur. I walked, became very silent, and faded into the background.”

-Journal Entry, April 28th, 2023

Initial Reactions

• Many things changed in those months. Long story short, my house was hit by a tornado. The roof was replaced. The trees surrounding the property were torn up and dilapidated, and plenty were missing as a result. Upon entering my house, the dimensions were off. I felt dizzy, seeing everything anew. It was like walking into a strange house, where you don’t know which room is which, except in my case, I was aware that it should be familiar.

• Mozzie, my dog, had grown 3 times the size I remembered him being. We adopted him 12 days before I left and I was a stranger to him. This didn’t bother him too much. Mozzie was just happy to have another person to play with.

• I had eaten a few things in The US at this point. I could not believe how salty everything was. The airport food was overpowering. This is most likely due to the whole-food diet I had been eating. But more than that, the fruit and veg in Spain are exemplary. I would like to say this aspect of my experience didn’t last long, but I still don’t like eating out at most restaurants.

First Few Days

• One thing I talked to my friends about before I left was having a support system. We had just gone through this whirlwind experience together and had resigned to different corners of The US. Despite that, we kept in contact. This continues to this day, as each of us moves through different phases of life.

• The first full morning, after everyone had woken up, I went to my sister’s house. My twin nieces were not yet 2. They just stared at me blankly as I waved and smiled. They remembered my face, but couldn’t register that I was their aunt. That stung. Luckily, children are quite forgiving. Within a few days, we were just as close as before.

• I forgot that I didn’t have to do everything alone. I could ask someone to go with me to run errands. I didn’t have to eat every meal alone. Finding my place back within my family unit, in that regard, took some getting used to.

• I didn’t know how to behave in different social situations. Bridging the gap between being honest and creating falsehoods is something I struggled to come to terms with. I have glossed over this in a previous newsletter. Due to that, I had several responses preplanned to deflect what I was truly feeling at the time.

The next couple of weeks

• While walking around downtown, I imagined I was still on the streets of Barcelona. I kept trying to relive and emulate the moments of my host city in my hometown. The public transportation system leaves me a bit wanting. In all its different iterations, the bread here is far from any idyllic common phrases or sayings. These broke my heart, but were things I expected. Sometimes I would wake up from dreams, only to realize I was home in my room, not standing in the middle of a bustling crowd or walking through Ancient Roman ruins.

• Things that felt monumental pre-abroad had little to no effect on me post-abroad. I had just finished climbing what felt like a mountain. Once I reached the top, I turned around to perceive that the drop wasn’t as far as I initially thought. So, I decided to camp on the side of the mountain of life, and appreciate the view. Even though it wasn’t very far from my new perspective, the short climb primed me for the next summit.

• I didn’t want to travel much. I had lived far away; I was much more interested in staying home surrounded by family. Going along with this, I couldn’t be around others for large amounts of time. I have always been more private and introverted, but my time away made this blindingly apparent. I would often take long respites in between social engagements.

Months Later and Now

All of this to say: from the before, during, and after, study abroad is like skydiving. The leap, the fall, the catch, and the moments before you hit the ground, are all-encompassing. There isn’t a part less extreme than the others. In its finality, you are left with the fact: I have been skydiving. That can’t be taken away, no matter how great the distance is from that moment in time.

Things are slower here. Life in Indiana isn’t moving 2 miles per minute. There is more time; I often reflect on memories to pass it. I worry that I won’t experience that heightened life again. How will anything measure up? But, more on that at a later date.

I am sure I will mull over all these things again and again, picking apart each section, and finding new ways to examine them. Keeping this polished catalog of accounts helps me do this. Already, I can see the differences in a year.

Comparing my journal entries and memories to what I have written here today makes me wonder what I will think of these words in ten years. My guess… I will be thankful for the energy used now, but equally thankful for how much time can change one’s perspective on different phases of life. In other words, I am grateful for the things that have happened in my life and the work I have done to get here. I hope that will ring true again in the future.