This post is pretty much a direct response to my mother's request that I "please blog at least one more time" before I leave. Which is entirely reasonable considering that it's been months... Whoops!
I'm leaving Australia in just under two weeks. It makes me feel a bit forlorn to think that my day-to-day life for the last twelve months will quickly become yesterday's happenings, and then a pleasant memory, and then a chapter of the storybook that once was my youth (boy does that sound melodramatic). Mostly, however, I'm just overwhelmed that the five months that became a year abroad transformed my life for the better: Made me a more adaptable person, a more independent person, more adult, happier, all sorts of good things. My first post on this blog is funny for me to read, in retrospect... The things that mattered then versus the things that matter now.
I refer to myself as "more adult" mostly because I seriously started being responsible for myself this year, and financially this semester. I was working ~30hours a week with a full class schedule (that's 24 credits, Oregon!), and it was hard but it also enabled me to travel to the Australian outback and New Zealand pretty much of my own financial independence, which is maybe the greatest gift I've ever given myself. As my friend Brittany said to me, "you're always broke because you pick life experiences over savings..." damn straight! This term I:
-Star-gazed the clearest night sky on planet earth, the Australian outback
-Slept in a swag (even when there was a tent available)
-Spent quality time outdoors in an environment that feels completely foreign
-Ate camel meat
-Taught Salime "how to be a hippie"
-Got really good at my hospitality job
-Read ~4 novels a week for class
-Got to know some of the most important people in my life
-Built up the courage to read my poetry in a public place... And was well received!
-Realized that even though I don't feel terribly American all the time, America is ingrained in me and where I come from is part of who I am
-Took off in a camper-van in New Zealand with very little idea of where I was going
-Went zorbing (google it)
-Rafted in underground caves with glow-worms...
I don't fully know what I'm doing when I go back to America, or when I graduate from college, or "with my life"... But for the first time I find the uncertainty exhilarating. I'm going to miss this so much, I already know so, and there are some truly spectacular individuals here whose company I treasure dearly... But maybe, just maybe, I'm just a little bit closer to understanding what matters, and future years will follow suit wherever I am.
Cheers,
Amy
