My junior year of high school, I lived in the small mountain town of Santa Rosa de Cabal in Colombia as a Rotary Youth Exchange student.
I have started anecdotes, speeches, college essays, and even self-introductions with that sentence. Seems almost strange how one sentence, one year, one decision can become so incredibly descriptive and meaningful.
Before I left for Colombia, I had expected to come home an entirely new, reinvented person who knew exactly what they wanted from the world. If you think that’s a bit much to expect from one year abroad, you’d be correct: I came back feeling perhaps even more confused about what I wanted than before I had left, and most people didn’t see me as someone totally new, but rather as a matured and Spanish-speaking version of my old self.
What I realize now is that our experiences do not turn us into totally new people, rather they mature us into better versions of the people we were all along. In my case, my experiences in Colombia opened my eyes to an expanded view of the world and furthered my desire to discover the languages, cultures, and stories that exist across the planet. It has been a year now since I returned home, and I believe this year has been just as transformative as my year in Colombia.
Of course, the challenges were different this time: I didn’t have to learn a new language and culture, but I had to adapt to my old ones. I didn’t have to make new friends, but I had to reconnect with many I hadn’t spoken to in months. As I slowly stepped into this process of readjustment, I felt a gulf open up between who I had been before I left and who I was then. It took me a year to bridge this gap, to become whole again. The other day, as I was driving home one night, listening to salsa music and juxtaposing my nostalgia for the mountains of Colombia with the rolling cornfields of Indiana, I realized that I felt like myself for the first time in months.
It’s hard to explain what it feels like to lose yourself, but I felt that way when I returned home. I felt so out of place in high school, where my peers were worried about the football game and I was dreaming of places they’d never heard of. It was hard to look for colleges and towards my future when I hadn’t yet reconciled my past, and I couldn’t feel at home in my own luxurious country knowing that the reality in many other places is far bleeker. I wanted at once to return to Colombia and to stay home with my family forever. As I processed these difficult and conflicting emotions, I was growing, even though I may not have realized it.
Now I have experienced two great and difficult adjustments: one to Colombia, and one back to the US. Each adjustment has called on me to rethink my preconceptions and to smile even when I didn’t feel like it. Each time I felt as though I’d lost myself in the turmoil, and each time I found myself again, a little altered and a little more mature. And now, just as I feel a sense of place and purpose again at home, I face a third great adjustment: college. I am not afraid, however, even with the coronavirus and the cross-country move that face me as I go to UCLA. I can expect to lose and then find myself yet again, and I can expect that these challenges will shape my future identity. I welcome this challenge and this learning experience, and I am grateful for the moments and people that have brought me here, to the person I am today: I couldn’t have done it without you.
P.S.- I just graduated High School :)
