I’ve currently been abroad for almost two months now and might I add it has been a very long, emotional journey.
Before I begin, I want to start my explaining my prior knowledge of abroad. I never was very sure about my decision to go— I have always been a homebody, and one to stay inside my comfort zone. I decided to follow in the footsteps of my sister and travel to Spain to study abroad to improve my Spanish (note: I’m a Spanish minor but still not very good), but when I was actually accepted into the program, my mind raced in different directions as to whether or not this was a journey I wanted to pursue, an experience I wanted to undergo. After months of deliberation, I came to the conclusion that I would regret it if I didn’t go. So that was that.
“Everyone loves abroad. Everyone absolutely raves about it. You’ll never want to leave.” These are the classic connotations about abroad, thus these were what I felt like I had to feel the second I stepped off the plane in Barcelona. However, these emotions never came, and I instead felt numb. I wasn’t excited, I wasn’t nervous— just numb.
My excitement didn’t intensify over the first week- to be frank, I was miserable. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I was completely and utterly homesick. I missed my family, my friends, my boyfriend- the list goes on. The Spanish lifestyle is completely different from the US, and I wasn’t acclimating very well. Not to mention, being a blonde, young, female isn’t very easy in Spain because you stick out like a sore thumb. I’ve been harassed, made fun of by Spaniards, and gawked at in the streets as I walk by. This was my first month in a nutshell. I hated abroad.
And then, suddenly things changed. After talking with a friend who had been abroad the pervious year, I realized that I was holding abroad to too high of expectations. I felt as though I had to love it or I was an outsider. I would try to force myself to be happy, laugh with my peers, take excited pictures, and post countless snapstories making it seem like I was having the time of my life. But when I realized that it was ok to be homesick, and that it was ok to not initially like it, it was as if my abroad experience made a complete turnaround.
I accepted where I was, and learned to love the position I was in. Once I started travelling, seeing friends from home and family from Europe, I fell in love. I realized how foolish I was to be miserable. I wasn’t giving abroad a chance until I started letting myself live, and stopped trying to live up to expectations of others.
So my final words are, it’s ok to not be in love with abroad at first. Don’t let the experiences of others dictate your journey. You are able to feel what you want to feel, and it doesn’t always have to be excitement and joy. Being abroad isn’t all rainbows and smiles—there are definitely times of sadness, moments when you’ll want to be home, and culture shock. But I’ve learned that in the end, this will be one of the most incredible experiences of my life, and I will be so thankful that I persevered in the end.