Living abroad is both infinitely exciting and impossibly hard, all at the same time. It’s different than just traveling abroad or sightseeing or touring around – living abroad involves practically becoming a resident of another country. Turning a bit ex-pat. Saying goodbye to your familiar home and food and friends and family for a prolonged amount of time.
It’s especially hard toward the end of your time abroad, as America looms closer and closer and everything about the country you’re currently in gets more and more annoying. You begin to think only of the comfort of your own home, of people who knew you before you embarked on this crazy journey, of a place where people speak English fluently and without an accent. And instead of loving your life abroad, you begin to wonder why you left home in the first place.
So it’s month 10 of this weird wild journey called The World Race. And of course, everyone has been talking a lot about what life will look like when arrive back in America, of all the things and people we miss and how good it will be to finally set foot on American soil again. Understandable, right?
But sometimes I worry that there is too much talk about America, that we are not living in the moment, that we’re missing the wonder that still happening right in front of us. The last ten months have flown by, and trust me, the last month will go by much faster.
It’s easy to check out now. To think constantly of home so we can escape the fact that we are not there right at this moment.
It’s common knowledge that The World Race is not my longest time outside of the US. And at the end of my year and half in Japan, I was incredibly guilty of thinking only of America and not appreciating my last few months abroad. I was frustrated with my job, with the amount of hours I was working, with trying to be an English teacher when I was really a photographer, with the food and grocery stores and my tiny apartment and pretty much everything that wasn’t American. I was in a foul mood about 90% of the time, just generally unhappy with life.
The last few months in Japan sped by faster than the shinkansen. And when I returned to America, I immediately missed Japan.
I was so so frustrated with myself that I had let the last few months in Japan slip by without appreciating my time there. It wasn’t until I left Japan and was removed from it that I finally saw what a beautiful, significant experience it was. And I would have given anything to go back.
I’ve been in this place before. This transition place of finishing a life of travel and beginning a life back home. I’ve felt these feelings of anxiousness, frustration and discontent before. And when I was in Japan, it robbed me of living that experience fully – right to the very end.
Take it from me, A Squad: You will miss this when you get back to America. Sure, you won’t miss every single thing, but you will miss this adventure, this experience. We are living an amazing life right now. We are. And it breaks my heart to think that some of my you will feel the same way I felt when I returned to America after Japan. That you didn’t know what you had until it was gone.
It’s okay to think about home. It’s okay to make plans. But please, please never forget what a wonderful opportunity it is to travel around the world, loving others like Jesus loves them and living in crazy intense community. We are part of a small group of world travelers; we are lucky, we are blessed and we are strong enough to see this thing through the very end.
