I had just left Launceston and was heading to Melbourne for my last week in Australia. It was a great week, and a great end to the trip at the end of another great trip. I basically spent the week reading the Da Vinci Code in the botanical gardens, falling in love with Fitzroy, and eating my last meal in Australia at Creatures.
But all of this seems so far away and so trivial compared to everything else. Coming home was the hardest adjustment I had to make throughout the whole study abroad experience. For five months I had just been happy. I wasn't worried about school and I wasn't worried about what I was doing with my life. I was in new place and had such completely different priorities from what I had before I left and what I have now. So coming back home to a place that was anything but new was an adjustment.
Being that happy for five months sets you up for a huge let down. I found myself continually trying to get that "study abroad high" again but nothing did the trick. Even when you're back to being yourself at home and are happy, it's such a different kind of happiness and just pales in comparison to how you felt when you were abroad.
But even when I was abroad and felt so content to be where I was, I still missed Madison. So I try now to think positively about being back in Madison and to get out and do all the things I missed when I was gone. And that helps. I find myself just stopping on the bike path to the grocery store to take a minute to appreciate the lake and the capitol. And going to the farmer's market has never been more appreciated, even when it's 50 and raining. Just being able to get on bike and go somewhere after class feels great some days. It's too hard to sit around and think back to all the great, but really specific moments I had when I was abroad. When I first got home all I could think about was getting on the 98 bus route and going into Freo. But now I find myself focusing on the experience of study abroad as a whole and the journey it truly was. Thinking of the five months as a whole makes me appreciate the experience without missing any one thing too much.
I still cling to my specifics, though. I have one of my favorite photos framed in my apartment. It's made an appearance on here before. It was taken at sunset on one of the last nights of my marine biology field camp my first week in Australia. That week really set the tone for the rest of semester. I was in a new setting and found it absolutely beautiful. It hit me that week that for the first time in my life, I was going to be living on the ocean. And that it was summer in February. And that I was meeting new people every day. And that I was taking classes not because I needed them to graduate, but because I wanted to (and as it turned out I got the perfect amount of credits for those classes, because what I'm interested in is my major-another great lesson learned). It was a week of learning things academically and learning things about myself. Little did I know what the rest of the semester had in store for me.
And now as I sit here at Trout Lake, in northern Wisconsin on this perfect fall day, I realize how much I like being home and how much I can still appreciate the semester abroad.
In Australia I woke up to views of the Indian Ocean, here I wake up to views of a forest at peak fall colors and Trout Lake behind it. In Australia I headed down to the intertidal zone in my swimmies to do some sampling. Here, I drove to a small lake and took a canoe out while wearing pants and a sweat shirt. No trips to Penguin Island on this trip, but instead Culver's.
I miss those views from Australia, but I'm still happy being at Trout Lake. This is a landscape I'm familiar with. Trees are changing color in October, not May. And the 'right' trees are changing colors. This is home, for better or worse, and this is what I have a connection to. As much as I loved living someplace new, I had no history with Australia.
But the great thing is, now I have a history with the midwest and Australia. Both places feel like home in their own ways. I'll never forget my last trip to the grocery store when I was still in Perth and how I was basically crying the whole way home because I realized I might never walk down South Street again. South Street is another one of those great examples of how much things changed, including myself. My very first night in Australia I walked down that same street to the same grocery store. I remember thinking how almost unattractive the town was, or how there really wasn't a town there at all. South Street has no charm to it in the traditional sense. It's basically a four lane highway with a sidewalk along it. And yet when I left, I knew I was going to miss it. Just as much as I was going to miss those traditionally beautiful views of the Indian Ocean and the great finds in Freo. It was part of my new home and had become part of my daily routine. And if/when I go back, I will have a history with Western Australia, and even though it is bound to change dramatically in the next decade, I know it will still feel like home.
I'm not sure if any of that makes any sense at all. For me, sometimes it does and sometimes I just miss Australia too much to take that step back and appreciate the semester. But I'm getting there.
Signing off?
