This is the truth about coming home: It’s not adventurous, new, or daring—at least not in the way that studying abroad was. But home is a slow, warm type of comfort that you always end up longing for eventually. It’s the comfort of going to the same overdone restaurants, but it’s worth it because I’m finally eating with my sister. It’s the comfort of knowing where we’re going. even when my boyfriend tries to surprise me. because I know this city so well. It’s the comfort in knowing that it’s okay I came back sick from the chill of my last week in Seoul because I could just lay in bed and let my mom make me soup. Even in a boring, small city like the one I come from, it’s the people you return to that make you want to be back.
That’s not to say that the people you leave behind after a relatively quick but intimate experience abroad make saying goodbye easy. Because that’s something goodbyes will never be: easy. So here’s how to do it.
STEP 1: SAYING GOODBYE
How can a goodbye be easy when, in a mere four months, a couple of strangers from around the world came together and decided, “Yep, in this strange, new place, this is who we’re gonna love, look out for, and make our best memories with.” It’s not just an alliance or an agreement to be friends so that you have someone to hang out with. In those four months when you’re far from home in a country whose language you don’t speak, friendship is everything.
So, no. Leaving the place where you had movie-worthy moments and felt the youth Katy Perry sings about will be anything but painless. Personally, I lived some of my most exciting moments so far while studying abroad. Surprisingly enough, the things I remember most reminiscing are very simple. I remember meeting my friends randomly at midnight because one of us couldn’t sleep or going to the convenience store at 3 a.m. to find it packed with students because someone was always hungry.
I loved seeing my classmates on the streets near my dorm (oddly an experience I would dread back home), always bumping into someone at lunch and eating together, or spending hours at the coffee shop studying (or getting distracted by the latest gossip). Even the painful parts were fun, like carrying our shopping bags up our massive hill, walking everywhere in the heat or the cold, getting lost because we definitely got on the wrong bus, or waiting for the first 5:30 a.m. train to get home.
So, how do you say goodbye to the freedom of youthful exploration and loving friendships? You pick a place the last night everyone will be in town. You eat, reminisce, compare your first impressions of each other, and share the last bits of drama you overheard recently. You hug, cry, take pictures, and say goodbye. Then, before you get in your taxi, you do it all again and promise to meet up again someday.
STEP 2: COMING HOME
If Korea is a honeymooning couple who can’t get enough of each other, then home is the old married couple who bicker but can enjoy a familiar, peaceful silence. Yes, very different, but while Korea offered a wondrous feel of vacation bliss, home is the steady, calm safety of family. I will admit that the things I was most excited about were hugging my dogs, eating my culture’s food, and lying in my big, comfy bed.
Exiting customs at the airport to see my mom holding a giant “Welcome Home” balloon reminded me that, while I originally left to experience something new, I had long been yearning to be back. After staying goodbye, which was so sad and painful and heartbreaking, coming home helped make it better. Your new little moments—baking horrible cakes, ripping your chubby dog’s sweater so that it would fit, making fun of your sister’s new fat cat, and seeing Christmas decorations—bring you back to the now.
STEP 3: ???
And then it’s onto the final step…which, honestly, I have no idea what it is. But I hope whatever I have the courage to do next is as amazing as this last experience. And I hope whatever you do next, you love too.
Natalia Martinez, University of Texas at El Paso, is studying abroad in South Korea with TEAN.
