Spain 4

First: I really need to work on my titles. Any ideas?
Also: I am now officially writing for the UMBC Retriever Foreign Desk, submitting articles every three weeks (I hope). Any particular stories you would like to hear? Or any other suggestions? They might bear remarking similarity to my blog, beware...

Now... Some reflections of the past couple of days.

Life is all about patterns, I've found. Patterns aren't simply what you do everyday, although that too, is part of a pattern. Adjusting your schedule is easy; eating lunch at a different time, waking up earlier or later, spending ten hours a week in class or thirty. But patterns run deeper than that, and changing them can be much harder than simply adjusting a schedule.
Each person that has ever touched or continuously touches your life is part of a pattern. Your parents, your brothers and sisters, your friends, even your dog, cat, or guinea pig, your professors, your sandwich maker, your ex. Each person fits into your life in a particular way, and provides something different, whether it be support, companionship, an open ear, mentorship, or anything else. And each person brings out different aspects of your personality: your humor, your tenderness, your enthusiasm, your passion, your love, your stubbornness, and from time to time your anger. In general we seek out the people that bring out the best in ourselves, but no matter someone's impact on us, they help create who we are simply by being in our lives, and making us realize more about ourselves as we discover more about each other.
The most important patterns in life are the footprints of all those people (and animals) who mold us, one way or another, into the person we are day to day.
The hardest part about leaving home isn't being away in a strange place, or having to learn a new language, or being unable to communicate with people, or missing friends and family, although all of those also require some adjustment. The hardest part is entirely abandoning all former patterns, and adopting new ones.
Happiness and sorrow blend as old waves of patterns crash into new shores, leaving you somewhere tossed in the middle. For a while you are simply and repeatedly beaten by those waves until you can find the courage to get up, face adversity, and feel the sand beneath your toes. And when you finally take those first steps into new patterns, and allow people to touch your life, you will find something new and precious as a perfect sand dollar. And in that moment, you will feel nothing except for being intensely alive and free.
Some people never reach that point, for the sole reason of being too afraid to come ashore at all, and they remain bobbing on the surface or trying to dive back down to old patterns despite the pull of the tide. Leaving behind old patterns, as I've said, is the hardest part, and for good reason. Who can tell if the ocean will be quite the same when you return, or more importantly, if you will be the same person and still able to live in the ocean upon your return? Will your friends forget you, fill your pattern in their lives? I can't say with surety that any of these will not be true. However, I can say that new patterns enrich life, and rarely take the place of old patterns, but instead enhance the best qualities you possess, allowing you to grow not apart from people back home, but more complete. And when you return, when I return, I will not be less, not be replaced, not lack those patterns I held so recently. I will be more, I will be stronger, I will know how to get what I want, or how to live without knowing exactly what I want, and how to become who I want to be. I will step back in where I left off, not the same, but still embracing those old patterns again, finding a way to meld both the old and the new, and with the same love and passion in my heart.
I hope upon my return I can still say the same, and have accomplished all of this, or at least some portion. Right now I'm still feeling the lap of water on my back.

When I first decided to study abroad, I only had a couple of things in mind. First, I knew I would regret not doing it while I had the chance, and I can't stand regrets. Second, I didn't know if I could do it, if I could really find the audacity to live fully without anything I'd ever depended on. I've traveled before, but that was vacation, and never longer than a month. But studying abroad isn't a vacation, it's living in an entirely different place, making a new life for a short while. As someone interested in the Peace Corps, in living in other countries for months at a time, and traveling, I had to know if this was something I could do and would enjoy. If it wasn't, then I would have to seriously alter my self image and life plans, which made me all the more determined.
But no matter my determination, crashing waves pounded homesickness and the love of people I couldn't stand to leave behind deep into my core, shaking my heart until it was raw and all previous vows were forgotten. Luckily with time the waves become less insistent, and slowly I begin to make plans, allow myself to leave some things behind and let my host family and new friends in. Hopefully it will only keep getting easier, and I can finally learn to let go without forgetting, without erasing footprints, and allow myself to find what I'm looking for.

Sorry for the lack of any other updates. Really right now I'm trying to focus on learning Spanish, and the adventures have yet to come, most likely on weekends.