I am an international student, and snow is not my favorite — but I longed to see it on the other side of the world two years ago.
As of late, I wonder how long it took other international students to realize that they too have been split in half, one part of them here, one part back home.
It crept up on me gradually, starting with the belongings I left behind, then the people I left behind, and finally, the version of myself I left behind.
There is such a deep confusion between going back home being so happy to see everyone and then having to miss everyone all over again because all you get is two weeks before you revert to the part of yourself that navigates and lives better alone.
I don’t know much about anything. But I can navigate any airport and know the do’s and don’ts of how to live between two vastly different cultures.
I know how to pretend I belong in both when I don’t belong in either.
I know how to mesh them together when I have to but I’ll never be at home.
A part of me is here and a part of me is there and I don’t know who I grieve more — my memories reside in one but my growth and character reside in another.
Something positive is I laugh a lot in both and that gives me the chance to have double the stories to share with double the crowd — but that leaves incapability in making one memory simultaneously with everyone I love.
I love my original home and I am grateful for my new one. But somewhere in between the lines my existence between both became an existential crisis of not knowing who to be.
I know I love my homes, though neither hug me tightly enough. I know I blossom on my terms but the person I am blossoming into has split in half and with that, I leave behind more than I wish to fathom.
I have learnt to live as two people, with two homes, and two different sets of belongings with the same lessons, realizations, and dreams. But I am forever the in-between in nature and with it, the months take me with them as I go through the phases of life, twice.
I am an international student, in case you have forgotten — I will always be, in-between.