We’ve always been told that jealousy is the ugliest trait. However, there are certain times where it’s hard to hide your feelings. When I hear or see that someone is about to travel the world I should instantly be happy for them but them spending a semester abroad just means that another semester has gone by since it was my turn to experience the world and suddenly, I can’t just be happy for them. Jealousy comes hand in hand with that happiness.
To the girl who is about to travel the world, this one is for you:
Embrace everything, don’t be afraid of anything, take chances and explore each and every city you travel to until there is nothing left to explore. That is my advice to you because four months later, when you hear the words, “Ladies & Gentlemen, we are now approaching New York City where the local time is 2:00 p.m. At this stage you should be in your seat with your seatbelt firmly fastened,” you won’t be ready to step off that plane and you’ll be thinking about everything you might have “forgotten” to do.
Once you do get yourself to get off the plane, go through customs and get your bags, you’ll see your family crying with joy that you made it home safely after four long months in a different country and you’ll, for a short period of time, feel content. That feeling will last a couple days, maybe even a week. But once you’re back in the swing of things and you realize you can’t go to one of your favorite clubs in Barcelona on a Monday night with your best friends or travel to Amsterdam for a weekend getaway in the middle of February, or walk a few steps past your door and get the best coconut gelato in the world, it will hit you that those four months filled with adventure, excitement and love is now over.
Embrace everything. If you’re traveling to London, eat fish and chips. If you’re traveling to Venice, ride a gondola. Make yourself one of the locals wherever you go. That is the only way you’ll get the most genuine experience.
Don’t be afraid. Travel to places you never thought you’d have the chance to travel to in a million years because if you don’t now, who knows when you will.
Take chances. Schedule that flight that gets in from Germany at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning and hope that you make it to your 10 a.m. class (ok, maybe not big chances).
Explore unbeaten paths. If you don’t spend every night you have in Paris outside the Eiffel Tower during the light show with your best friends and a bottle of wine, did you even go to Paris? If you didn’t find the most unique, unknown restaurant in Madrid, did you really appreciate everything the city had to offer?
Go in with an open mind and of course, an open heart. Every place you are on your way to travel to has something new to teach you. I hope you say yes, I hope you grow and I hope you learn. I hope you grow into the person you were destined to be. I hope you learn about who you are but above that, I hope you learn about each and every place you have visited and you take something about each and every person you come across with you for the rest of eternity.
Last but not least, I hope you have the time of your life.
It’s easy to imagine what you’d be doing at this very moment if you were still abroad. Post-abroad depression IS a real thing. When you’re all hugged out, the reunions with your closest friends are over, the fighting with your siblings starts back up and you’ve told your story about that “one time in Germany” so many times that you’re asked to stop talking, a lot of us find that coming home isn’t actually coming home.
Your home is being surrounded by the unfamiliar. You are different now and different is good. Travel more, take in the little things more often and if you don’t do anything at all, please never stop telling those over-told stories about your experiences because once you stop, you’re letting go a piece of yourself and that piece is now a key component of who you are and who you will continue to be. These are cities, lessons, foods and above all, friends that you will never, ever, forget.