I returned from Prague months ago, yet it still consumes all of my thoughts. I miss taking the tram to class and spending time with my favorite people 24/7. I miss traveling to places I never could have imagined, and scoping out new parks with people who turned into my family. I miss slices of cake after class and $3 lattes. I miss meeting people from all over the world and developing the craziest stories from it. The hostels, the long travel days, and exhaustion become moments that I yearn for.
I thought going to a new country where I didn’t know anyone or the language was going to be my hardest battle of the year- but boy, was I wrong. Summer was fun, but coming back to Emmanuel has become an extremely steep uphill climb. I feel like I’m constantly sinking with a weight on my ankle, pulling me back as I start to readjust back to life in Boston when all I want is to be the carefree person that I was this past spring.
My biggest fear was coming home and seeing that everyone had learned to live without me. It’s a selfish thought -like duh Maggie of course they learned to move one without your presence. But still, with every single interaction, it stings a bit. Friendships have formed and crumpled and now I’m trying (and failing) to keep up with this new life that’s somehow also my old life. My friends talk about spring memories, and when I sit there silently they do their best to fill me in. But is that enough? There is a weight on my ankle reminding me -tugging at me- that I’m not the same person that I was. That I don’t fit perfectly into the life that I wanted for so long. I have different values and standards. My perspective of the world outside of America has shifted.
Yet somehow, I also don’t know who I am anymore in Boston. Before Prague, I knew that I was going to spend the rest of my life here. I was choosing my favorite neighborhoods and making a map of the city in my mind. But now…I don’t know anymore, and that hurts. I don’t regret leaving at all. Studying abroad was genuinely the best decision of my life, but I also have to remind myself that I’m only 20. The rest of my life does not need to be decided right now. Hell, I don’t even know who I’ll be in a year, and that’s the fun of it. We do not live our lives so that on our graves it states how successful we are and how many friends we had; we live our lives because that is all we can do.
So if anyone is reading this after coming back home from study abroad or after a major life change, you’re not alone. On the outside we might look like we’re staying a float, but most of us are still remembering how to swim.