I’m at the halfway point in the semester where I’m feeling a lot of things about my abroad trip. Aix has become a home to me – not to the same extent as my home home, but enough of a home where I can crave my bed even whilst gallivanting around metropolitan Scotland. I’m happy to be back from fall break, but my desire for home home grows more and more every day. I miss random things I never would have considered missing before, like Dunkin Donuts, acorn squash soup, and constant Christmas commercialism. The things I knew I would miss, like Halloween vibes and Thanksgiving dinner and the leading-up-to-Christmas spirit press on me all the time. And my bed, my actual bed… I miss it most of all.
The study abroad experience has gone differently than I thought it would, but in a good way. I didn’t think I would miss so much about my home as I do, but I’m glad that I miss even the most random things. Studying abroad is about discovering who you are and what you’re capable of, and I think I’m capable of multiple feelings. I miss apple cider and pumpkin pie, but I love that in a month’s time, Aix’s Christmas markets will be up and running, offering a magical, fantasy winter setting I would not be able to see in Orlando. I’m excited for my other upcoming travels with friends, but I wish I could just lay on my couch in my pajamas and watch Netflix for hours and hours, too. What I’m trying to get at is that the world is never a black-and-white place, and neither is the study abroad experience. It grows grayer all the time, with every pastry I eat and every cup of crappy French tea I drink (because coffee is disgusting anywhere you go).
And I know that when I return home, I’ll end up missing those pastries just as I’m happy to sleep in my own bed for the first time in months.