My earliest memories were informed by an awareness that I did not belong to just one culture. My father is Dutch, my mother is American. My Oma and Opa spoke one language (Dutch), and my Grandma and Grandpa spoke another (English). I had lived in Europe (The Netherlands), Africa (South Africa), and America (Florida) each by the time I was 6 years old. Moving from place to place, culture to culture, language to language, and community to community were not all that odd to me. Now, having lived in the United States for thirteen years, my world is obviously quite different. Though I identify as a Dutch-American and frequently travel to visit family and friends around the globe, I have grown quite comfortable having a place to call home: Florida. I went to school here, made most of my friends here, even had all of my jobs here. I often feel a tension between my international heritage and my desire to belong to one subculture.
When I decided I was going to attend Rollins College in the Spring of 2018, I knew immediately that this would entail a semester abroad at some point. I had plenty of ideas: Sydney, France, even Israel. The concept of being whisked away to another culture after having resided in Florida for so long brought me great excitement. Though, as time went on, and the Spring semester of 2020 drew nearer and nearer, things became much more real. I decided I only wanted to go on a program that would fulfill class requirements for my two majors: Communication Studies and Religious Studies. An option I had not remotely considered opened: Rome, Italy. It felt right.
Making the decision to move my life to Rome for four months has been a complicated endeavor. It’s one of those things that makes plenty sense on paper, but also is quite emotionally involved. My family is split between the United States and The Netherlands, as is the vast majority of my friends. Choosing to study in Rome is a choice that forfeits seeing any of those parties, aside from a weekend in Holland once or twice during the semester. As the trip approaches, the more I find myself thinking of how badly I will miss my loved ones.
It is not the fear of a foreign land, language, or culture that frightens me; I’ve experienced that many times before. It is the feeling of doing something on my own. To start over for a brief moment in time. To not have the control I’ve become accustomed to.
I see my future time in Italy as a genuine step into adulthood. I hope to learn more about myself, whom I’d like to become, and what steps I must take to become that person. I’d like to articulate better what I believe to be my purpose in a general sense, but particularly in a vocational sense. At the same time, I’m looking forward to branching out socially with an entirely new group of individuals from various universities across the United States, the UK, and perhaps Italy too. I’ve appreciated building a core social circle at home over the past thirteen years. I know it’s worth expanding that.
I’m looking forward to being open to whatever lessons Italy is willing to offer me. The more I research, the more captivated I am by the city of Rome, the culture of Italy, and the Italian language. If there is one thing I hope for sure, it is to come back differently than I left. It is difficult to imagine what that will manifest as, but I am ready and willing: to learn, imagine, to explore, and to create something new.