days > 365 -- blooming

advice for future exchange students #29:

take time to bloom.

seriously. do what makes you happy,

but most importantly,

do what makes you grow and learn and change.

that's what matters.

(yes, i'm skipping ahead about 100 days from my most recent countdown update. explanation below.)

the last 100 days of my exchange were amazing... and i decided to prioritize enjoying my exchange, making memories, spending time with the people i care about, etc. which means that i neglected my blog.
for those of you who keep track of me via this blog, i'm really sorry-- but i did have amazing and wonderful experiences and i WILL share them! only, not exactly in real time. ;)

the sharp pain of goodbyes IS a real thing, and reverse culture shock is ALSO totally a real thing, and secondhomesickness/hostsickness is also a VERY. REAL. THING. but i'm learning, and i'm changing, and i like to believe that this is helping me to grow up. to "bloom", if you want to be super cheesy.

so, here's what Hannah has been doing in the past no-longer-blogging-days: (not chronologically)

• came home.
• said a lot of tearful goodbyes. my class, my families, my friends... i'm awful at goodbyes and prolonging them over a few weeks was not the best way to go. also, i cried for one and a half hours in my first flight to the US.
• saw The Fault In Our Stars in German. still have not seen it in english... hmmm...
• dreamed and is dreaming in Swiss German. still. :/
• went to summer camp.
• celebrated my bestie's birthday.
• went on a camping trip with my family (a very long one) and realized just how unused i am to road trips. TWO HOURS in the car?!? WHAT???
• went on an extended-family vacation at the beach. Oregon Coast, i have missed you.
• spoke Swiss German (hooray!) with the conference speaker at our beach vacation center. it blessed me so much and made me ridiculously happy. 
• went to my first American Rotary meeting in a year. it was amazing to realize just how much people in this group have invested in me and my exchange, and to get a chance to thank them for that. Rotary has problems sometimes, yes, but overall, it basically rocks.
• speaking of Rotary, our Rebound (returning exchange student) weekend finished today! I can't believe how much we've changed in the past year, and how much all of us have learned. it's probably one of the weirdest and yet most amazing shifts i've ever seen.
• and this year no longer terrifies me or worries me as much as it used to. because i am realizing how much more i am capable of.

that's it for now!

love love love,

hannah

how lucky i am

"how lucky i am to have something

that makes saying goodbye so hard."

--winnie the pooh

whenever people tell you why you should study abroad, they tell you the good things.
they tell you that you'll learn about yourself, that you'll speak a new language and adjust to a new culture.

but what they don't tell you is that it hurts.

sure, it hurts to be away from home and to bite the dust in language and to constantly embarrass yourself in foreign etiquette. that's normal. but it's not that bad.

what hurts is the missing. the countdown of days. the awareness that you will be both returning home and leaving home at the same time, the feeling of constantly saying goodbye, the knowledge that your year is about to end.

it is unpredictable, because it creeps up on you at strange times -- in math class, or lying awake at night, or walking through a crowded city street --  and it makes you frustrated, because you don't understand. you don't see how in less than 12 months, one can fall in love... not with a person or a thing, but with an entire country... and you are upset at yourself for not seeing it earlier. for not, somehow, avoiding this ache.

and yet you ask yourself if you would give up this year, this crazy tangled beautiful mess of a year full of excitement and disappointment and learning about yourself and making stupid mistakes and overdramatizing and having heart-to-heart talks and traveling and making memories and dreaming bigger than you've ever dreamed in your entire life...
no, you wouldn't. not really.


and because your goodbyes hurt,
because the thought of leaving is painful,
because this is so hard,

you realize
how lucky you really are.

saying goodbye

i promised myself i wouldn't cry.

and i didn't. i didn't cry at the end of school. i didn't cry at my goodbye party. i didn't cry when all my bags were packed, or when we left the house, or during the car ride.

except then i said goodbye to my family, and that promise basically flew out the window.

it was hard to say goodbye to my grandparents and my aunt and my parents and my sisters and my little brother. still, they know that i will only be gone for a year.

but how do you explain exchange to a two-year-old?

my littlest sister doesn't know that i'm leaving for a year. she can't comprehend that i will be in another country. she doesn't understand that when i leave, i will be living on the other side of the world.

and so i look at her and tell her the things i know to be true.
"hannah is going
 far away,
and you will not see her
for a long, long time.
but you know what?
hannah loves you,
and she's coming back."

"i'm coming back."

days < 10 -- farewelling

piece of advice for future exchange students #6:

say goodbye to people you know whenever you see them. because you never know when you might be leaving, and you will not be coming home for a year.

note: for those of you who may have missed it, I now have a new countdown timer (note that this one counts down to when I will be in Switzerland, not when I will depart the US).

this past weekend, I said goodbye to a group of my friends. It was fun, and encouraging, and delicious (nutella for the win :P) and for the first half of the party I just enjoyed seeing everyone and talking and laughing.

and then about halfway through, I realized that this was possibly the last time I'd be seeing most of them... at least for a year.

that after I left, life would continue. 

that when I come back, people would be different. 

that they would have seen things and made memories and grown up a little bit more. 

and I knew all that, in the back of my mind, but somehow the party triggered my realization of it. 

which made saying goodbye harder.

but you know what?

when I finally leave, life will continue.

after I come back, I will be different.

I will have seen things and made memories and grown up a little bit more.

and that is the reason that I am leaving, and that is the reason I am saying goodbye, and I knew all that in the back of my mind but somehow the goodbyes triggered my realization of it.

which made saying goodbye--easier. for some reason.

things that have happened in the past 10 days:

• the advantage of having a party is that you get to see all your friends. so I saw my friends and said goodbye and it was bittersweet.
• and yet good.
• I'm packed! (well, mostly.) hooray!
• in the past couple weeks, I've gotten to know this amazing girl named Sarah who's also an outbound to Switzerland. our conversations make me more excited to go :)
• I'm really too tired to list anything else. 
• goodnight.

dreams, doubt, and saying goodbye

just because something is a bloomability does not mean that it comes without its fair share of doubt.

when you sign up for exchange, they tell you about the best things. all the places you'll go. all the sights you'll see. all the friends you'll make. and i think that's true, every word of it, because exchange sounds amazing.

but they never mention what you'll be missing.

because when you sign up for a year, you may not exactly realize that you're going to be gone for, well, a year. there's a lot that can happen in a year, you know. people change, and places change, and friendships change. you gain a lot on your exchange year, but you will also be giving up quite a bit.
the more time i spend with my friends, the more i realize that this is a place where i belong. and that i will be leaving it behind once i leave. and that i will never quite be in this same spot again.

it's odd to think that high school goes so fast. i thought it lasted forever, and here i am, halfway through, doing something i would never have seen myself doing two years ago. it makes me feel very old and very young at the same time.

a few months ago i said goodbye to my normal school friends and classes and activities. there was the usual hugging and exchanging of email addresses and promises to stay in touch.
but it was different this time.
because every time someone said "will i see you next year" the answer wasn't "yes" or "maybe".
the answer was "no".
"no" because i am going on exchange. and at the end of the summer when you are buying notebooks and pencils and folders and stepping onto the bus for school, i will be buying my ticket and stepping onto a plane for another country.

and every time i look at a calendar, i remember:
in less than 10 days, i will be separated from my friends and family and everything that is safe and comfortable.
in less than 10 days i will be flying across the ocean toward my new country, toward my new family, toward my new home.
in less than 10 days, i will be gone.