Rough Transition

When I left Ireland in May, I gave the event very little recognition. I tried not to think about leaving, I tried not to post about leaving. I thought that if I gave as little emotional energy as possible that it would help ease the eventual pain. And this strategy worked, for a while. I was able to sleep, I was able to edit videos, I was able to do absolutely nothing but eat and watch television and felt relatively good about being back.

Now that I am a month out it has finally hit me and it has hit me hard.

This jolt has come very unexpectedly and I am just now concluding that it is, in one form or another, the "reverse culture shock" people predict. And perhaps most confusingly, the stress is in no way about leaving my beloved Ireland but is instead about returning to my beloved Kansas.

Ireland facilitated a glorious lifestyle for me - minimal school work, unlimited travel, social expansion, and a whole lot of self discovery. While I miss that life (and probably always will), that is not the part that I am stressed and depressed about. Instead the turmoil comes from the incongruence of the life I led before and the person I am now. The new me cannot seem to fit in the spot the old  Emily left behind and into her dependable relationships from a year ago.

Not only is this now-world jokingly mundane compared to what I had abroad, but to my ignorant shock everyone did actually move on without me. My presence is now a year old in every eye and the gossip and camaraderie more than a few months expired. The distractions in Ireland made me horrible at staying in touch and naturally (as I should have expected), people learned to live without me and I without them. It is as if I am back in a land of acquaintances and I have to reintroduce myself, regain their trust, and reform opinions of the people walking in and out of my days.

I don't know if this is common for students that return. Today was the first day I became truly overwhelmed and hope that as I force these two lives together some harmony results.

While I try to keep this website positive and lighthearted, I also strive for transparency. I am hoping to fully document the "study abroad experience" and want you, my reader, to realize that it is not all daisies and roses. When you study abroad there is a clear beginning and a clear end. And if the journey was worth taking, the end should always be bitter sweet.

Yours,

The Opinionated Lassie