Home again

I should really be cleaning my room right now.  Both of my suitcases, my carry-on, and my backpack are sitting wide open on my bedroom floor, with clothes spilling out of their mouths.  This, paired with the state of disarray in which I apparently left my room in January (no memory of this), leave very little open floor space, stress me out when I look at my room,  and might be a fire hazard.  But every time I go to put things away, I end up sitting, staring, and thinking for a while about my time in Seville.

This, sadly, will be my last official GeoBlog post.  I returned home on Saturday, which was possibly the longest day of my life (though my trip to Seville, which lasted over 24 hours because of a long delay in Lisbon, has the record).  I imagine everyone goes through this when traveling “backwards” through time zones.  The day just did not end!  The sun stayed in the same spot for a long portion of the day, and by the time my mom and I reached home, I was absolutely spent.  It probably didn’t help that I had stayed up until 2 the previous night packing, and that I had had a trying last few days saying goodbye to my friends, teachers, and host parents.

At the end of my last post, I had mentioned how hard I thought goodbyes would be at the end of this semester.  And they were not only difficult, but also strange.  How do you say goodbye to someone or something without knowing when you are going to see them again?  Or if you will ever see them again?  It feels like a normal goodbye– like you are parting ways just until the next day.  Except that a part of your brain, which is tasked with having some idea of the future and of conceptualizing time (however vaguely and ineptly), forces you to try to bridge the temporal distance between your present goodbye and your next encounter.  But you can’t, because the question of when or whether you will meet again is marred with uncertainty.

I remember boarding the plane to Lisbon (with a connecting flight to Seville) in early January, amidst snow drifts and anxiety.  It was one of the scariest moments of my life.  “There is no getting out of this now,” I remember thinking.  Bad thought to think.  But I had no idea what would be in store during the close to 5 months on the other side of the Atlantic.  I spent those 5 months meeting some amazing people and coming to know some amazing things.  And now that I have taken the time to know these people and things and have come to love them all, I’ve left them without knowing when we will meet again.

I struggle at the moment with the distance between myself and these people and things, but also with the distance between myself and my present surroundings.  I have heard that this is something that study abroad students face when they come home: they feel frustrated because the people around them have not had the same experiences they have just had, and they feel misunderstood.  That is how I feel right now, though I am elated to see my friends and family for the first time since Christmas.  But I am frustrated that I can’t make people see what I have gone through, and all I have learned about myself and the world.  It’s ironic, because during these past 5 months I frequently felt like I couldn’t convey thoughts or feelings to others; I didn’t have the vocabulary in Spanish to do so.  The irony is, now that I have returned home and have at my disposal a language in which I am well-versed, I still can’t express what I feel.

Though I am a little down because the excitement of this adventure has finally begun to dissipate– out of habit, I still check my phone often, wanting to see what the day has in store– I can’t help but have anything but gratitude towards the people who made my experience so incredible and the city that became like a home.  So I want to say it once, with sincerity and love and a few tears: thank you.  I hope we’ll meet again soon.

me holding the Seville flag next to the river


Location: Seville, Spain

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2 thoughts on “Home again

  1. JILL CACERES

    Me alegra saber que lo pasaste tan genial en Sevilla. 🙂 En realidad, vivir en otro país fue una de las mejores experiencias de mi vida. Y es verdad, no es fácil expresar todo lo que sentías durante y lo que sientes ahora, después del viaje. En cierto modo, son momentos especiales que solo tu y unas pocas otras (tal vez) pueden realmente entender y apreciar.

  2. Marissa Lombardo

    Wish your blog had a “like” button! I love this picture of you. And I love you too. 🙂

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