How studying abroad ruined (and made) me
It was a beautiful late July evening. I was finally on a long-deserved vacation after the madness that 2020 had been thus far. Sitting on the balcony of my rental apartment in Western Greece, overlooking the seemingly endless, dreamy surface of the Ionian Sea as the sky dusked in hues of pink and orange, I left a deep sigh of longing and inexplicable solitude.
“I wish my classmates from the Master’s were here to see this.”
I am fully aware of how weird this might be to read for many people — I really do. I got used to struggling to explain to outsiders the bond that I have been sharing with 30 people from all around the world for the past 9 years. I also struggle to accept the fact that it has already been 7 years since we all last co-existed in one physical space. I am completely fine with accepting most other signs that prove the effect time has on people, our relationships, and our environments. But this one is particularly painful to be reminded of; every single time.
The beginning of my Master’s program found me at the strange age of 22. Neither was I too sure of who I was at the time, nor was I completely oblivious. I was raised in a very homogenous family and society— speaking English fluently was already considered a very big feat. I had no foreign friends, except from some online penpals. My parents had never travelled abroad, until I introduced them to the idea as an adult. Basically, I was signing up for a huge life adventure, equipped only with fearlessness stemming from the enthusiasm of a young, curious mind. Boy, was I in for a ride!
Within the next two years, me and my 30 classmates travelled all around Europe, relocating caravan-style from one place to the other, following our program’s particularity of switching campuses every semester. We got acquainted in rainy, windy Denmark, helping each other feel more comfortable with our new surroundings and fighting bad weather with endless cups of tea and pieces of cake in our warm, yet simple student flats that seemed too overpriced. We bonded further in small but surprisingly charming Slovenia, roaming around lands wet by the Adriatic Sea, attending student parties and introducing each other to our new lovers— some for the night, some for life. Our souls became fully entwined in colorful, exuberant Spain, challenging each other’s mind, sharing big personal news, and realizing for the first time that all of this wouldn’t last forever.
I still remember the night we had “the talk”. It was a humid, rather cold January night in Girona, Spain. We had all gathered for one of our usual weekend get-togethers in someone’s house — the winter vacation had just ended and there was a creeping sense of uneasiness across the room. I was leaning against the back of a couch, looking at people mingle, chatter, share food and drinks. But there was something different that night. People were not laughing like before. A classmate from Romania approached me sheepishly. I instantly knew what she was about to say: “I guess this is the last we see each other in a while”. She hugged me. We both cried, keeping that hug for way longer than most people would consider appropriate. Before you realize it, the whole room was humming and panicking and realizing the elephant in the room had been addressed.
The last semester found us spread across the globe, some together and some solo, travelling for research or personal purposes, trying to wrap our theses up and figure out what the hell it was we wanted to do next. We kept in touch regardless the distance, made promises of meeting again, and all looked towards our upcoming graduation as an opportunity to meet and celebrate. We sent birthday videos. We travelled to each other’s location. We mailed postcards. We had Skype calls. We basically maintained a long-distance platonic polyamorous relationship, the impact of which I could not have even imagined before hopping onto this adventure of a lifetime.
Seven years have passed since we all stood in the same room together. Maybe it’s even eight, counting that some of us didn’t manage to attend the graduation in 2013. The first couple of years, I literally felt that a piece of me had been torn off of my body. I covered my anxieties by relocating all too often, working hard and trying to make a career for myself, while my home country was struggling to provide me with an opportunity that seemed interesting enough to attract me back.
I struggled for the longest time with the idea that all excitement in life had basically ended after graduation. That life was a downhill slope from that point on and that the best was behind me. As a person who finds great solace in optimism for the future, this thought made it very hard for me to live inside my own skin for a while. It felt as if my past well-being was sabotaging my future well-being. My defence mechanism was to keep contact with the program as much as possible, rather than let go and find my own path in life. I worked for one of the consortium universities for a few months, dated a fellow program alumnus, and even attended a couple of graduations in the years following to mine. Life seemed to move on but part of me was stuck.
Each year, I was one of the first people to sign up for our famous reunions; a tradition that, thankfully, has remained alive for the past few years (with the exception of coronavirus-disrupted 2020). Every time I’d meet my classmates during one of them, the world instantly became a better place. For a few days that 22 year old me and that older, current version of me would be at peace and I’d feel all my troubles were gone. I can only describe it as an ultimate sense of belonging. A sense you can only feel with someone who knows all the different versions of you, both before and after a big, life-changing experience, such as this one was.
During one of our reunions in Tbilisi, Georgia, my Georgian classmate’s charming, folklore-loving father made a toast by narrating a story. The moral of the story was that there is no bigger blessing than having true friends, especially if they live in different corners of the planet. He explained that each one of us has multiple hometowns around the globe and that our heart beats in as many tempos as the true friends we have. He closed by saying that, although this is a very difficult responsibility to bear, knowing you can’t see your loved ones often, accepting the situation for what it is and embracing the uncertainty is one solid step closer to true happiness. After hearing the story, I just smiled, exclaimed “Gaumardjos!”, had a sip of wine and went through the rest of the night as if nothing had changed. I was just not yet ready.
Few years down the line and slowly addressing some of my own demons, I started recollecting this story whenever I feel lonely, insecure, or incomplete. I keep reminding myself that my fortune is greater than any short-lived pain and that I wouldn’t be the same person if it wasn’t for these 30 individuals and all the globe-trotting I did with them. With great power comes great responsibility, after all.
I look at the sun make a full dive into the blue waters of the Ionian Sea, accentuating silhouettes of isles and rocks as far as the eye can see. I close my eyes. I see a TV screen in a narrow studio flat playing a fast, incomprehensible Indonesian film. I see hummingbirds gathering around feeders in a porch in rural Vermont. I see commuters in Oslo coming back from work on bicycles, trains, cars, and pairs of feet. I see the sun rise as majestically as mine sets from behind a mountain somewhere in British Columbia.
I see 31 versions of myself. And I see 31 different homes.
