The End.
These past 3 months have been indescribable. I’m sorry to everyone who asks how my semester was and receives a response of “Great!” I can’t explain how being here has affected me. I’ve learned so much about myself and about other people, about relationships. I’ve grown more confident, more sure of myself and my actions. I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but also discovered that it’s the best way to learn about life. I’ve learned about all kinds of cultures and how they interact. I’ve learned how the world operates and how I operate best. I’ll be going forward with a new lease on life, ready to make my impact and let others make their impact on me.
I don’t think my friends here realize how much they affected me. I made a new best friend, new good friends, new acquaintances. I will never forget these people. I’ll be telling stories about them for ages. I’ll constantly be comparing all the new people I meet to them. They’ve taught me so much about myself, about other opinions, about life.
I’ll remember this time in little clips: a friend running through the forest on campus, a snowball fight during a pub crawl in Budapest, catching the 5:30am metro and staying up to see the sun rise, watching someone drink all my Belgian beer, sleeping in a London airport, an unexpected chat about life while on the RER, laughing so hard in Berlin that I had to sit down in the club.
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so genuinely so often. There were so few sad moments during my stay here. I can count on 3 fingers the number of times I cried. It was like living in a fantasy, a second reality. I’m not ready to return to my real life, where I’ve got to be responsible and act like an adult. This has been too good to be true.
Don’t let me wake up.
