It's Hitting Me

So I’m not feeling the need to write a ton, but I’m in a place right now where a lot has come up the past few days around study abroad—well it still comes up for me all the time. It’s been a rough week regarding some of it though. I feel myself continuing to get back into the routine of home. I’ve had a lot of fun in the last few weeks hanging out with everyone, feeling very loved and welcomed home.

And this blog isn’t meant to be a downer even if the last few posts seem that way. However, I also feel it’s necessary to keep up on the whole experience.

Anyways. So just to check in. For the most part I’m doing fine. But I’m having more moments. The excitement of getting home is quickly winding down now.

I cried over kebabs last week. It sounds like the stupidest thing and I wouldn’t discount other potential factors for why this happened. But my mom offered to get kebabs for dinner, to which I asked, “Kebabs like, Europe's kebabs?” and she responded yes which led to me literally feeling like I got hit by a wall of emotion that made me cry. And actually because of the place I’m in right now, typing this is making me cry thinking about it. Obviously, it’s not so much the kebabs I miss. But it just hit me. How much I miss it. How far away it is. How even us going out to dinner and getting something similar was just not at all the same.

Friday I woke up early for an opening shift at work. I got up and threw myself together. Then I teared up and eventually cried a bit in the car on the way to work trying not to think about how much I wish for one morning I could wake up again in Cannes. In room 317 of the International College with my roommates Sky and Grace in our yellow room with twin sized beds and yellow comforters. Our tiny closets. Their desks directly centered and facing each other between our two windows which were always left open to our top notch view of the courtyard filled with palm trees and the sea on the horizon. How I’d roll out of bed and go to breakfast with everyone. Then go to class (oh man, here it comes) with Giselle. With Hans and Alex and Elsa and Patrick and Jeannie. And we’d talk in French for hours and enjoy each other’s company and learn from each other. 

And there I was months later in my car on the freeway headed to Marie Callender’s for work.

And then today. Today I didn’t wake up feeling it necessarily. But I got in my car and “I Will Wait” was playing on the radio. It made me want to just listen to more Mumford and Sons who I listen to all the time, but who I also listened to a ton on my trip and who’s songs in so many ways take me right back to exactly how I felt abroad. Those songs in a lot of ways are like anthems to me of my trip. But soon after I put on more of their songs, I felt myself choke up while singing along, and started crying. For the third time in about a week’s period. And although I was headed to work once again and didn’t want to show up a wreck, I tried to suck it up and it still slipped out. 

This is me being really just honest and open I guess—because I usually hate admitting any kind of weakness, I tend to not want people to see me that way. But I just miss it. I miss the people. And mostly, I miss how I felt there. Because there I felt so alive and at home these days I just don’t really. I’m here. I’m working and I’m spending time with people and I’m enjoying little things here and there but it’s just not the same.

And then tonight what motivated me to write this was just that I’d written just a few letters to some of my study abroad friends. Haven’t finished em all yet but did a few. So I decided to write the addresses I’d gotten on the envelopes and seal em up so when I buy stamps tomorrow I can finally send them about 2 months later than intended. I re-read them and sealed them all up. And right after doing so it literally felt like I’d just sealed up little pieces of my heart to send off. Maybe it’s just that it feels so final—like a final stamp to put on these experiences in these friendships. It is and it isn’t. But it just makes me miss them more and makes me want to go back for a night and even just give them all a hug, hear them talk and laugh for a few minutes.

So. I’m being super emotional for anyone who can’t tell. And it’s not all the time I feel like I’m struggling but it is cropping up more and more often and at really random and/or unexpected times.

And there it is. These days are mostly just working and making plans and keeping busy as much as I can. It's getting back into my church. Getting excited for school to start in a little over a month. Starting to plan some trips hopefully in the next year or so, nowhere too crazy though since I'm broke at the moment. 

And it's weird because I was totally prepared for this to happen. I don't know how many times study abroad advisors warned us about reverse culture shock. They warned us that it's easy to be depressed and what not, so I'm sure that's just exactly what it is. But it's definitely there and it's hitting me. However, as much as I knew within 1-2 weeks of being there how hard coming home would be (take a look at the "Culture Shock" post for proof that), I also knew that soon in that any sort of depression or reverse culture shock would be worth the experience ten times over.