by Shelby Ayers | Anthropology | Class of 2023
Academic Term of Essay Subject: Spring Semester 2022
Being 4,191 miles away from home is as disorienting as it sounds. It is even more so knowing that I put myself into this situation completely voluntarily, for which I was utterly regretting as my plane flew over the Atlantic in the darkest part of the night towards Amsterdam. I was fully aware of the fact at the time that I would not be able to see my family, friends or anyone familiar for the next few months to come, so the literal thousands of miles between us did not help reassure me. This sounds fairly dramatic, but luckily for me, my time abroad would come to be one of the most memorable and fulfilling times of my life thus far.
While I was studying abroad, I ended up visiting nine countries in total, and every single one that I went to seemed like it was worlds away from the country I was in a week prior. I found myself getting lost in the wonder of each new place that I traveled to. While trying my best to live in the moment, I could never get over how much it affected me when I would be walking down the street of some cozy, idealistic European town, and mutually greet or create basic conversation with strangers. These people had no idea what I was experiencing, or that they were all a part of it by adding to my experiences.
Towards the end of my time studying abroad, we had a debrief program that helped wrap up our semester in Europe. One of the sessions included a discussion about sharing our experiences with one another, and how the program could improve for future participants. After the discussion, we ended with one final task, which included taking the entirety of our time abroad and encapsulating it into only 6 words. I instantly knew this would be a monumental task because 6 words cannot usually get an extensive point across. And, knowing myself, I intended to take this task as seriously as it came, so I therefore went about attempting to sum up the last 3 and a half months of completely new life experiences in 6 words.
I sat there and simply thought about what I would take away from this once in a lifetime opportunity. Memories will fade, photos will get lost, but my time here will stay with me. There are feelings that are invoked from my experiences when I think about specific situations, and everything I felt while abroad is what I wanted my 6 words to encompass. I thought about when I experienced the feeling of slight melancholy and a sense of peace as I looked over the surrounding foggy landscape from castle ruins that once thrived centuries ago in Northern Luxembourg, or when I watched the sun lazily set behind the Barcelona skyline as I looked on with a hint of nostalgia and longing from the steady, continuous rocking of a sailboat, or when I was unable to contain my glee as Lake Brienz noisily crashed against the shore and drowned out my voice while I stood and felt the cool breeze from the Swiss Alps. These experiences, through the feelings and emotions that I felt alongside them, will stay with me throughout my life. With all of this in the forefront of my mind, I arrived at my 6 words: “My Time Will Come with Me”. I was fairly proud of this collection of words, since I fully believed it gave my time abroad worthy justice. I was taken aback, however, when others decided to use this task as a chance to joke about mishaps while abroad. “My phone was stolen while clubbing” or “I got COVID twice while here” were amongst my favorites.
When I announced mine to the class, some laughed a little at how serious I took the task, while others noted how creative it was. My time will come with me, indeed, because I am simply a reflection of my experiences, and all of the experiences that shaped me while I was overseas are now a part of me. As I grow up and move along with my life, I may forget certain things about my time in Europe; I will forget who I met or where I went, but there is no chance that I will ever be able to forget how it all made me feel.
*2nd Prize (2 awarded), Transformative Cultural Experiences at Miami, Abroad, or Away