New Homes

I'm feeling a little funny, slightly down. My thoughts, still ensconced in the staggering (I could only think of the french word to describe this, "bouleversant" and had to use my dictionary to remember the english word) experience of living in another country, culture and language, are rather scattered.

Forgive me if this is a little more somber than my usual heretically optimistic view of the world.

It's a little peculiar to me that this down period has struck so late in my stay. It has nothing to do with exams, which went well, or friends, who are still there, caring and wonderful. The past weekend was spent in the arms of my beloved grandparents, and we passed three days very peacefully conducting a verbal sass war.

It would be a little stereotypical to admit that "I'm feeling sad about leaving." I'll be back in March, yes, and without a doubt I'll go see my best friends from Nantes (and around the world) sometime in the next eighty years. My host family has taken up a permanent corner in my heart, as has Nantes, and while it will be difficult to say goodbye, facebook, email, skype and airplanes will keep those who are meant to be close together.

Another side would place this on par with a stage of growing up. The one where you have left the world of your childhood (mentally, physically, emotionally) and made a new one. The two planets orbit each other, and you can still see the old you faintly and send postcards every once in a while. But you can't go back. Not in the sense of being forbidden, or having an external barrier which prevents you from entering the doors of your "home."

But now you're grown up, and the same sense of home is past, not really present. Time to make new homes.