“Live and teach abroad, it will change your life forever,” everybody says. Nobody knows how much it really does change, though. Don’t get me wrong, it is great, but it comes with costs as well and I am now, when getting ready to leave, realizing that. As I pack my bag with the same things I did back then, I feel different. Somehow these clothes do not represent who I am anymore. “How much I have changed,” I think.
My bag is not big enough to carry all the lessons learned, but it does fit some of the lessons taught. I grab my students’ drawings filled with Te quiero profe and I somehow feel complete and incomplete all at once. “How many lives I have changed,” I tell myself as well.
Under the drawings I see the ConversaSpain folder given to me at the Induction Meeting. I was so scared of not making friends and not settling in… and look at me now! As equally scared to not be around them anymore.
I put some of my Spanish friends’ gifts and souvenirs in my bag to always carry them with me. “It’s okay, we’ll see each other again”. But the truth is that, if we meet again, it won’t ever be the same. That is the beauty of meeting someone at the right place in the right moment. “We will cherish these memories forever, though” goes through my mind while a smile is drawn in my face “and I will always remember how we have helped each other grow”.
Somehow, I find myself not wanting to finish packing but also already wanting to be at the airport. How can one feel so many emotions at once? Excited to be home, sad to be leaving; ready for what is coming, scared for what is left behind; thankful for this experience and anxious for its end. But one feeling stands above them all: I am brave.
I am brave for embarking on this experience on my own.
I am brave for putting myself out there.
I am brave for making it through the good and bad days.
I am brave for saying goodbye.
I am brave for having lived and taught abroad.
Living abroad is like leaving a piece of your heart in so many places, but not feeling complete in any of those places anymore. You are always missing something or someone. However, as I get overwhelmed by this feeling, I realize how many people have shared their pieces with me as well, and how many I take home with me. I know I won’t ever feel completely at home again, but I also know I will always have more than one.
“Live and teach abroad, it will change your life forever” I now tell everybody.
2 Responses
Reading your post, I feel as though I am reading my exact thoughts. I have never lived abroad but at my college the majority of my friends are internationals. Each year I find myself having to say goodbye to these friends, some graduating and I’m not sure the next time I will see them. Some of these friends have inspired me to purse this field, teaching english internationally, and I am guns blazing trying to make it a reality!
When it is so hard to say goodbye, it means there something worth missing! Hopefully, you’ll be able to teach English abroad and make your dream a reality! 🙂