What I leave behind

When I said goodbye to my friends and family in Germany I didn´t cry. Actually I was grinning from cheek to cheek on the last pictures we took at the airport. When I read the entries in my goodbye book I didn´t cry. I laughed at the cute stories and I felt blessed to have these people in my life. On the plane, in the arrival camp and during the first weeks. I didn´t cry. In fact I remember the first time as some kind of dream. I was in a weird state. It didn´t feel like leaving for a year. It felt like going on a vacation. Realising I will not see my family for eleven months, I will not walk through the streets or be in my town for almost a year is something almost impossible. Arriving somewhere new, becoming adapted to all these unknown things, meeting all these new people is something so unreal. All together it feels like I was so filled up with emotions I completely lacked on expressing them. It was a lot, too much to realise.
Everyone warns you about culture shocks. You have a week long pre-departure orientation from YFU where you get prepared for living abroad. Everyone tells you how hard it must be to leave everything behind. And I´m not going to lie. It is hard. But no matter how hard it is, you have a certainty that you will come back. Even though the time - eleven months - sometimes sounds and feels so incredibly long, it goes by so fast. Even though you sometimes wish for nothing but your mum to be there to give you a hug, you always have in mind that sooner or later you will be home again.
Everyone talks about how challenging it is to leave your whole life behind and go on exchange.
But what happens when you have to go back?
When you didn´t apply for an adventure in a different country, when you didn´t spend hours answering questions and e-mails, when you didn´t write first shy messages to strangers that will be your future family, when you didn´t count the days because you want your exchange to start so badly?
What happens when you just have to go? What happens when you have to leave after you just started to feel at home, when you just made friendships deeper than most before, when you just learned to communicate in a new language?
What happens when you don´t have a choice?
They say it is like a second exchange. That it is not the end, it is a new beginning. There will be changes, new things to get used to, reverse culture shock. It might be like a second time going on exchange. But it is something we didn't ask for.
There are all these mainstream exchange student quotes but they aren´t mainstream without a reason.
"You build a life for 16 years and you leave it for 10 months. Then you build a life for a year and you have to leave it forever." The second one is worse. So much worse.
I was sitting in the sun with a friend, listening to music and laughing at some stupid joke. We were laughing so much I almost fell from the bench and suddenly tears came to my eyes. "Why can´t we just stop time for a while?" I said. I was so happy in that moment that it hurt because I knew it wouldn´t be like this for long anymore.
The sooner the end gets the less I want to leave. And the more afraid I am of going home. Of course I am excited to see all the people again. To be somewhere I understand everyone. To know every way, every corner, every shop. But I know that I am only expecting everything to be well-known and easy. But it won`t be. Things changed, there and with me. And going back to the people I love so much also means going back to the people who don`t know my life here. They don`t know what my backyard looked like, how I sneaked out of class earlier to get ice cream with my friends, how I curled up in my bed in the middle of the night missing something I couldn`t even name so much it stole my sleep, how I laughed with a Finn for the first time. They don't know what it feels like to build a home somewhere so far. They don`t know what I leave behind.
Because what I leave behind is not just a country. It is not just a street sign, a landscape and a language. What I leave behind is not just people, is not just a house, not just a school, not just a town.
I thought I wasn`t ready to go on exchange. Now I would give a lot to be as ready to leave as I was 10 months ago.
What I leave behind is an experience. What I leave behind is not a year. It is a life.
And it hurts.