“How was it?” This is a question I’ve encountered many times after coming home from my study abroad in Malta. Even now, a year after the beginning of my exchange, I still stumble to find a word or sentence to sum it up. I often find myself saying things like “amazing” and “enriching” and “transformative.” While these words are true, they never feel capacious enough. In this piece, I hope to share some of what I learned through the beautiful broadness that was my exchange, from the homesick beginning to the ‘not-wanting-to-leave’ end.
I was lucky enough to have friends from home visit me during my first week in Malta, including my soul sister Adora. We explored the island, ate amazing food, danced, and more. During this week I felt like I was adjusting just fine. However, after they left, I found myself sitting alone in my student residence room with the realization that there would be much adjusting to do. I was scared and deeply missing the blanket of familiarity that had been covering me thus far in this new place. But working through my fear and homesickness was necessary, and truly helped me grow in ways I never could have at home. I learned more about myself within the five months of my exchange than I have in a span of years!
Here are some of the ways that I was able to find myself while away:
Creating a home in the small moments meant so much. It took some time for me to indulge in the small things and moments fully, because exchange is often romanticized as grandiose and fully composed of “big moments.” While I experienced big moments, like attending a Women’s March in the streets of Valletta, watching sunsets at Riviera Bay beach and cliff jumping at St. Paul’s, it was the small moments that helped me truly forge Malta as my home.
These little pockets of time looked like mornings with a coffee in the piazza of my student residence, sitting outside in the Mediterranean sun with my journal. Warm evening runs taking in the Msida skyline alongside my best friend Riyad. Early Sunday morning car-boot sales where I found vintage Maltese Jewelry. Having insightful conversations about travelling and my home on the bus with my friend Mariluz after our volunteer shifts at the Migrant Women’s Association. I can’t express enough how much these moments still mean to me now. All this to say, let yourself enjoy the small moments fully without worrying if they are big enough (more on that later)!
Taking the perspective of quality over quantity when it comes to friendships. This helped alleviate my self-imposed pressure to make a large amount of friends quickly. I do think it’s important to put yourself out there while away; go to that event, reach out to your neighbors, etc! However, this perspective on making friends deeply shifted one day whilst sitting in a Film and Well-Being class in Malta. My professor was emphasizing how connections are invaluable to our lives, but that we aren’t meant to connect with everyone we meet.
I felt a weight off my chest as I realized that I didn’t need to overwhelm myself needing to have a big friend group. Instead, I began cultivating friendships with the people I truly clicked with and through that, I formed a close circle of lovely people who I was so lucky to navigate exchange with. It can be hard to let yourself get close to people while away because it’s so temporary. But taking that leap to make deep connections instead of trying to spread myself thin was such a pivotal change for me. I’m still in touch with the friends I made while abroad today – and I don’t see that changing anytime soon <3
Making sure to live in the moment. Ohh how this cheesy line played in my head time and time again while I was away. While it’s a common travelling proverb, I learned that it’s also a conscious choice. At the homesick beginning of my exchange, I was counting down the days to when I’d leave. I know this is a feeling that some of my closest friends felt whilst on exchange as well. Then toward the end, after collecting countless beautiful small moments and holding my circle of friends close, I dreaded the day I’d be packing my bags. An important way I coped in both circumstances was remembering to choose to be present and give that departure date less mental space.
At the start, making the choice to work through my homesickness and fear to immerse myself in my exchange was difficult. I felt as if there was no way I could make Malta my home. In the end, making the choice to not shut myself down because I was leaving soon was equally as difficult. By then, I’d made a life for myself in Malta that I was not ready to leave behind. So, I chose to lean into living in the moment even more staunchly. I understood that my time was limited but I was not going to let that limit me.
While these are three things that shaped my exchange, and subsequently me, they come from a beautifully non-exhaustive list. The most important thing I can say about exchange is that it isn’t one thing. It isn’t just amazing or enriching or transformative or uncomfy or complicated. It’s all of these things, and whatever you choose to make it. The happiness of making a home somewhere new and the sadness of leaving it behind can coexist and are not mutually exclusive.
Shortly after I came home, I was worried that all the change and growth I’d experienced while away had disappeared. That I would become stagnant. In sharing this worry, someone poignantly told me that the seeds of that growth from my exchange are still all within me. As long as I keep nurturing myself and opening myself up to the sunlight those seeds will grow and bloom as I move through life. And as I bloom I’ll keep adding to that list I mentioned: more ways I’ve grown, more lessons I’ve learned, and more adventures that are waiting for me that I now feel able to embark on!