The final step in loving someone or something that is not your current destiny is letting it go. Not forgetting it, but understanding that it is no longer right for you. This is where I’m at currently. As my semester abroad draws to a close, I’m trying to become content with the fact that I have to leave people and a place that I love.
The season four finale of the TV show How I Met Your Mother (2004) concerns taking “The Leap”. One character is trying to progress their career (whilst being attacked by a goat), one is physically trying to leap between two buildings to access a hot tub and two others are discovering and confessing their feelings towards each other. At the end of the episode, the gang of five all leap between the two buildings, whilst taking huge leaps in their lives. Sounds scary, right? Should you fail the leap, your life changes forever and you miss out on numerous opportunities. But if you leap successfully, the opposite happens. We may regret certain decisions that we’ve made before, but I can guarantee that everyone has also regretted not taking leaps as well.
I think back to the person I was before I came on my semester abroad. I had struggled through 2025, desperate for an escape and something new in life. I was also terrified. This was going to be the longest period of time that I had ever spent away from my home and my family. I considered backing out. When I got to GW, I was a shell of the person I am now. But it only took me a week or so to break out of this. I made friends quickly and settled into my classes. It all felt so natural to me. My parents had come with me to move me out, so the day that they left was difficult. But my friends were there for me when I needed them. Be it going on walks, getting lunch at the dining hall and complaining about the food or hugging me whilst I cried and going shopping with me to make me feel better. Every single one of my friends will remain someone I was eternally grateful to meet. They were my destiny when I arrived in January.
You’ll have moments in which memories come back to haunt you. You’ll replay every single word you said and either regret, or want to find a way in which you can change them. But the past is set in stone. It is not something we can edit. Rather, you have to learn to become comfortable with everything that was unsettling and hope that you do better in the future. I went on a walk with a good friend of mine last week, the same route I took with someone else two months ago, and I retracted many of my steps whilst doing so. It’s a memory of a relationship, unshattered by its unfortunate ending. If it had meant nothing, I wouldn’t remember what words were shared and where. It was my destiny when both February, March and parts of April flew by, now existing as a reel of film, stashed in a mental drawer.
But in the mini life you’ll encounter on your semester abroad, should you take the leap and move to a completely different country for a while, you don’t have time to be sad. Everyone needs a day in bed, or a week. You’ll find yourself, lose yourself, find your friends, lose them, find love, lose it. A semester abroad is an entire lifespan condensed into four quick months. And because it all happens so rapidly, you can’t let a single moment go to waste. I’ve learnt just how quickly things can come and go, leaving me both grateful and melancholy.
So, thank you, Washington D.C. Thank you for the memories, the good and the bad. The people who have changed me and the people who accepted me. Those who may not stay with me in presence, but will forever exist in the mosaic of my identity. Thank you for being an awesome city, of which I still have so much to explore when I inevitably come back here. Thank you for showing me love, how good it feels to fall into it and how many forms it comes in. But I have a degree to finish at home. It’s time to say my temporary goodbye. It is my destiny for now.
A list of everything I did on my semester abroad that I will never forget:
- Joined HerCampus GW!
- Visited and got to know my family in Toronto.
- Went monumenting with my friends.
- Explored cool neighbourhoods.
- Went on a 4-day trip to New York.
- Went to a gala.
- Vlogged.
- Solo-tripped to Boston and befriended the girls in my hostel.
- Dated, fell in love and went through a breakup.
- Got blocked and instantly lost all of my feelings for him.
- Explored some of D.C.’s concert scene.
- Saw some of the world’s greatest museums (and some of the worst!)
- Danced with my friends on rooftops, in the streets and in their dorms.
- Had afternoon tea in a bookstore.
- Got to live on a campus (when my university back home doesn’t really have one).
- Went to Niagara Falls.
- Saw the snow.
- Did karaoke.
- Got drunk on cheap wine and took a quiz with a hangover (I got an A).
- Numerous shopping trips.
- Fell back in love with myself.