We’re taught to think of the present as temporary. College life is often framed as something to move through before what really matters begins. We orient ourselves toward the future, convinced that meaning lives somewhere else: in a different city, or in a different version of ourselves, better adapted to life.
That belief followed me when I studied abroad for a year in a small coastal town in Scotland. I knew the experience was temporary, and that awareness made me more present, more attentive to each day that unfolded. The novelty of it all sharpened my attention, and each day felt worth noticing because it didn’t quite belong to me. The people around me were temporary: trips to corner coffee shops, walks along the beach, and the ring of the old bell tower. None of it felt permanent, just a brief phase of life, a short-lived utopia I knew I wouldn’t stay in forever. That impermanence made it glow. Distance from home, and the independence it brought, made everything feel significant simply because it was unfamiliar.
“None of it felt permanent, just a brief phase of life, a short-lived utopia I knew I wouldn’t stay in forever. That impermanence made it glow.”
Penelope Hunter
But what surprised me most about my time abroad, wasn’t the feeling I had while it lasted. It’s the feeling of coming back. At first, returning felt like losing the dream I had tried so hard to hold onto. Reality was unsettling, and for a while it felt like the novelty had ended. The mundaneness of day-to-day life had crept back. But as I’ve transitioned into reality after a semester back, I am starting to realize that returning doesn’t mean settling or shrinking into something smaller and less “there”. I am beginning to feel a sense of clarity that I hadn’t fully understood before. That meaning doesn’t always wait for us somewhere else, and that newness doesn’t require unfamiliarity.
Ironically, being away from home taught me that meaning doesn’t always arrive through fresh starts. Sometimes it shows up quietly, the places and people that you know and love. Sometimes it’s already there, asking only that you slow down, pay attention, and stay.