The month in the US is almost over, and I'm already packed and ready to leave for Germany. Alright, I have to finish packing and clean my room before leaving for the airport at 9 in the morning, but the sentiment remains: I feel like I've had very little time here in California. It is very surreal traveling like this - getting used to a certain place, a specific community and routine, and then packing up and moving to a different country, language, community.. I feel like I have three separate lives: One in Portland, tenuously kept alive by e-mails from the swim team, the LAS list, and Jon Eldridge's constant Opportunities and Announcements updates; one in Berkeley, with Jules and my family; and one in Chile, with Carrie and Stephanie (although she left before I did) and Marcelo and my host family and Steph and Carrie's host families..
Traveling is wearying in many ways. Not from jet-lag or otherwise physical weariness, and not mental weariness from functioning in a non-native language, although both are prominent factors in living abroad. More than anything else, I am emotionally exhausted from having to pull up all my roots and relocate every few months. It is saddening to know that the lives I adopt, the habits and routines I become accustomed to, even most of the relationships created abroad, are all temporary. Certainly, I incorporate foreign-influenced customs and quirks into my life upon returning: Spanish has become my automatic language when I don't understand what someone has said - I don't think we have to read very far into that to find the psychological implications - and the addiction to lemon and salt as a salad dressing (or as a snack) shows no sign of diminishing. And the best friends are always willing to put in the effort to stay in contact, but something always seems to get lost between the boarding gate and baggage claim.
I don't know exactly what is lost, and I don't know exactly what remains, but I know a different person will enter Germany in a couple of days than the person who set foot in Chile six months ago. Jules said once that she thought I was "softer", Martha commented that I seemed more willing to go with the flow, Carrie thinks I go out more often, and Jorge jokes that my dancing has certainly improved. So has my Spanish, as my host family pointed out. I agree with many of these observations, but they aren't what I would have highlighted as the most prominent differences. I am "softer" in the sense that I am older, by more than 6 months, it seems. I feel calmer, perhaps - more relaxed, emotionally wiser, and less self-conscious but at the same time more confident, assertive, and more brutal in my honesty.
Most helpful for my trip to Germany will probably be the decrease in self-consciousness and the increased confidence; I am willing to go exploring alone early on, before my program starts, which I probably would not have done alone in my first week in Chile, although my Spanish was better then than my German is now. As to language skills, I got over a lot of my inhibitions in speaking last semester: I know I am going to stand out as a foreigner, but I won't get any better at speaking if this fact prevents me from speaking at all. So I have a funny accent and limited skills. Well, my German is probably better than the Spanish skills of most Germans, and my English is at least as good as theirs.
(2) Having classes that I (hopefully) have to put some serious thought into besides memorization
(3) Speaking (after learning) German again and
(4) Developing my fourth life
...because what good does it do to look back?
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