Category: 2021/21 Maria C. (Italy) Blog Blogger High School Exchange Study Abroad UK UK High School Uncategorised

 

 

Hello friends and friends, I hope you’ve all been enjoying the summer so far.

As everything has a start, everything has also an end… and even if we try so hard to stop the time and to drag moments for ever, there’s something that we can’t stop.

There’s something that slips away from our hands, and we have to let it go. So yes, it’s time to say goodbye to this experience, but not a goodbye that lasts forever, because what I’ve lived here would last forever, and it will never get my goodbye as long as it will live with me.

 

 

I was so scared of coming here, all by myself, another language and a completely different world in the same world, but what it seems scarier now is the homecoming.

It’s the opposite situation: in September, it was me, the Maria I know going to a foreign country, to explore a new life. Now it’s a different, a foreign Maria going back to the same place. It was so exciting the idea of this adventure, that all the fears were overcame by the adrenaline.

I didn’t know what was waiting for me, but I knew who I was.

I know what it is waiting for me back to Italy, but I’m not that person of September anymore, and my question is: would that same life suit me still?

 

It seems so weird to hear, but when they say how much you discover about yourself going away, and how much you grow… just believe me, it’s true. It gives the possibility to immerse yourself in a binary dimension.

It’s like a big and long holiday, but instead of being a spectator and keeping the point of view of a tourist, you become part of that population. It gave me the possibility to find out how amazing people are, they all look after an immensity inside and they are a planet by themselves.

Every day is not the same, and you’re always wondering about what amazing surprises are waiting for you.

Of course, it’s not always that easy, especially at the beginning. There are difficulties you find on the way, you need to adapt yourself in a different position, and there are moments when you can miss your country a lot, but that’s the challenge. And as soon as you go back, you’ll miss the new country that became your home, a lot.

 

I remember that what was frustrating me the most at the beginning was the fact that I couldn’t understand everything people were saying to me, and I was always comparing myself to English people, thinking they would have preferred having friends from their nationality rather than someone different.

But… that’s not how it works.

What I found, speaking about me, is that all the emotions are up at 100 percent. This means that when you’re happy, you’re really euphoric… but when you have a bad day, everything seems going wrong  and you’re only thought is “I want to go home”.

 

What’s weird, though, is how much humans can adapt. Even if I’ve spent seventeen years of my life in Italy, if they ask me what I feel more familiar at the moment, I’ll say England.

Would I suggest this experience to a friend? Yes, I would… but you have to be ready to face everything it means, starting from a different type of food, different culture, people and habits.

You step in the house of strangers knowing that they’ll be your family for one year, and that asks you efforts and to put yourself out there. You have to leave your friends behind, your school and some comforts you would only find at your own home.

But all the happiness it gives and the satisfaction you would feel are worth the sacrifice.

 

You wake up and the first word or thought which comes out of your mouth is in another language (in my case English). When you speak with your parents you messed up sentences because you’re not sure anymore which one you are more familiar with… a race of letters and verbs hanging from the ceiling.

You build relationships that you’ll carry in your life as shining gems; as my host sister said “We’ll be friends of life in another country”. If this isn’t a treasure, what is then? I don’t only have friends now, but also another family which I feel as such, and this means a lot for me.

You are finally independent of your choices and of your days, you’re basically filling white pages with ink, giving them colors and creating your own story. And I’m amazing in love with my diary! Why don’t you write yours? You could be curiously surprised of yourself.

Check out Maria’s other blogs here!