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.

i am in love

note: the following post was written about a month ago in the train, but i didn't actually get around to posting it until just now. 

it's very short and also unedited, so just consider it a snapshot of my feelings at the moment.

I'm in the Gotthard Tunnel on a very long train ride, and I'm riding alone so I have plenty to write in my journal and plenty of time to do it. it's the nice thing about trains, the ability to always write and to lose yourself in writing. it's different from a plane or a bus or a car or really anything else. 

and i just realized something-- I am in love with the trains. 

I am in love with German and Italian and French. I am in love with chocolate and cheese and traveling and multilingual greetings and watches and history and snow. I am in love with strong mountains, fields that never end, villages nestled deep in valleys and streams bluer than the sky in summer. 

it's just wonderful, beautiful, and I realize that what I am really in love with is Switzerland. 

I am in love with this country.
and a part of my heart will always be here,
because Switzerland has changed me. 

and I don't want my old life back.

days > 130 -- celebrating

today i remember and celebrate:
the story that started at the beginning of time and lasts for eternity,
the gift that is completely undeserved and unreasonable, and yet given anyway,
the light that shines in the middle of darkness,
the love for a people who were so broken that they are incapable of truly loving,
the life that once gone, lives again and conquers death for all time,

the hope that is given to stay with us,
to be our light and our love and our life
forever.

wherever you are, whatever you call home, in whichever language you speak:
merry, merry christmas.

on the seventh day of christmas

on the seventh day of christmas

 my exchange gave to me
seven for a family
six lovely months
five languages

four advent days

three families

two traditions

and a new look at bloomability

so this is possibly one of the few things that has made my exchange what it is, and how amazing it is... it's a quick blog post and a long story.

you see, when i first met all these people, we were in a new country, learning a new language, meeting new families and friends. and to be honest, we aren't really that much alike. we clashed personality-wise and culture-wise and everything. i thought i would never, ever belong to this group, and i wasn't at all sure that i wanted to.

but you know what?

i was wrong. 

and i'm so glad that i was.

today, these seven people make up the rest of my exchanger family. we've gone through a lot, and it hasn't been all that easy, but we share a bond that not everyone is lucky enough to have. it's amazing to me, to realize that i've only known these people for a few months, and yet i have changed so much and they have changed so much, and i can't imagine never seeing them again.

and we are an exchange family.

we are a complicated,

oddly-grouped,

never-could-be-guessed,

beautiful family.