There's no way back home because the world is your home

         “You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.” – Miriam Adeney

         This is a quote I read some time ago and some of you have probably seen it, too. It describes perfectly what happens when you decide once to leave home and try living in another country or at least another city.

All those Erasmus, AIESEC, Work Abroad, Camp America and all the other countless exchange programs, traineeships, internships, voluntary work. It seems just such a great adventure, a wonderful experience, something nice to put to your CV and to tell about to your friends afterwards. Sounds like so much fun, getting to know the world, making international friends, parties and all that stuff. And it is of course. But that’s not all about it. It is pretty serious, too, so be careful and aware of what you are doing. Because once you decide to do it, there’s no way back. There’s no way back home. You think you do it only once, only for a few weeks or months, but it’s enough, you’re done.

I may be wrong, maybe not for all the people it works like that, most probably it doesn’t because we are different and have different experience. Maybe your first experience abroad was traumatic because you went for example to India, got too much cultural shock and are afraid to try again (sorry for the India example, but I heard real stories like that :D). Well, that happens I guess. But still seeing many of my friends’ experience I know that what I wrote is quite a common true. I have friends who are going through it exactly right know and for the first time in their lives. They left home once, for a few months. And now when coming back home they know that they won’t stay that long. That it became too familiar, too well-known, too boring and that they’re simply stuck there. Once they tried exploring the world they got to know what waits just behind the corner and they want more. Once they left home and made a different place their home for a while, they cannot feel comfortable in their old home again. They miss something. They saw and experience too much. The world is waiting.

But even though they feel like this it may be that finally they will just stay home or at least their home country for good. I have quite many friends that tried living abroad, but in the moment they seem comfortable in one place and don’t seem to change it soon. Maybe they’ve just found their place and it’s good for them. Or maybe not, but they’re not eager to make a drastic change anymore. I understand it well. If I stay in one place too long (let’s say for a few months), I become feeling like stuck. But if I stay a bit longer, I become feeling too used to and comfortable, too.. Because quitting all: a job/a school, a flat, friends, afternoon activities and every little detail of your life and starting all over from scratch is not easy. It’s totally what you call leaving your comfort zone because it’s completely uncomfortable. But for me at the same time it’s completely beautiful and I hope not to get too comfortable too quickly…

Quitting all your previous life and saying goodbye can be hard and stressful (especially moving out and transporting tons of your stuff..), but in the end if you decided to do it, there was some reason for it, you didn’t feel well enough and you wanted something more from life, so you shouldn’t cry THAT much, you’ll survive. And it’s usually a moment when you realized how much you had, how many friends you made and that you’re dear to them. If you had stayed, you probably wouldn’t see it and appreciate it that well so it’s a good side, too. Cry your part and move forward once you decided it.

Moving, travelling or just being about to travel and planning for me, personally, is the time when I feel the most alive, full of energy and fulfilled. At the same time it is so stressful and exhausting, but it is so vibrant! No depression has its place there, only action, step by step, a bus, a check-out, a plane, another bus, a hostel, a plane, changes, changes and motion…

Than starting from scratch in a new place is so much stress, being bombarded by new and getting to know new stuff 24/7… I find it the most difficult part, but the time after you have got through it is totally worth it.

Getting to know a different culture from the inside, drowning in a new reality and then learning to surf in it in a perfect style, trying to remember many new faces and new names of the people that then become your best friends, struggling to buy some bread using a new language that then becomes your principal tool of communication and you realize that you take part without effort even in dirty or absurd conversations between native speakers, trying carefully and with no confidence new strange dishes that then become your daily food, visiting new places that then you know like the back of your hand, feeling like a baby and trying not to get lost while using public transport until you just use it automatically even blindfolded, changing your customs, changing from tourist into a inhabitant, changing yourself… Oh, it just must be experienced, at least once. And then you want more, believe me.

I feel somehow that maybe what I wrote is nothing new and nothing revealing. Or maybe only for me and a few of those people who will read it. I don’t know. Still I wanted to share it and check if I’m right…