St. George Down Under

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June 5, 2009 at 3:58 pm (In AUS) (australia, depression, exchange, exchange student, reflections, study abroad, sydney)

This blog needs to turn away a bit from the whole ‘Travel Log’ thing that it has become. Those posts take me so long and consume me; it keeps me from writing anything else. At the moment I’m sitting on the couch in a quiet, sterile apartment, my head in a haze from over-sleeping and under-exercising. Finals are coming up for me and I literally haven’t gotten as far as checking the due date of my first paper, which is either this Monday or the next. When studying is on my plate, inevitably depression is as well.  Studying feels like such a waste to me. I know, that’s such a teenage-angsty way to look at it, but it really feels that way. Jumping through these irrelevant hoops just seems ridiculously trivial, and just acts as a catalyst to plummet my seemingly-fragile wellbeing. 

Also constantly on my plate and mind is the reality that I will soon be leaving the dear and close friends that I have made here. For some reason I never thought I would form such incredibly intense bonds during this time, but for some reason inexplicable to me I have. They are like brothers, sisters, and my roommates aunts, uncles, even parental figures. The thought of never seeing many of these people ever again is one that I cannot grasp, but one that rationally I know is based in fact. I will see many of these people again, but many others, I know, will only remain a memory. 

I haven’t seen Mona in two weeks due to school sputtering to a halt. Reese and I see each other sparingly, and a few days that we had been talking about spending at his place before he flew to America in late June now seem like they might not come to fruition. I haven’t seen Dulce in a while, and Ryan and I are for some reason relegated only to conversing around class periods. It is as if the transition has already begun.

However, thankfully but also prospectively painfully I have made two new friends, or rather gotten closer to previous acquaintances: Ashleigh, a close friend of Reese’s, and Kel, a friend from frisbee. Ashleigh and I have been hanging out pleasantly frequently in the past two weeks, taking in Angels and Demons and going to the city for an art exhibition, among other things. Kel and I have been hanging out between and after school, and she’s been planning on taking me on a bush walk and a tour of a few northern beaches. Why these relationships had to begin a month before I was to leave the country I will forever be curious of. 

People ask me if I’m excited to go home, and its a question that can’t really be answered by a simple, ‘yes’ or ‘no’. I’m excited to get back to see the friends and family that I’ve desperately missed, to congratulate and rejoice with a future cousin and meet my new ‘nephew’. I’m excited to move back in with the BUX307 boys and virtually live with the Corvallis girls again. I’m excited to talk and take in football and basketball with Dad, and help Mom in the garden. I can’t wait to cuddle Charlie and be enthralled with his exploratory personality. And I have wildly missed the family parties and gatherings, a place where I can truly be at ease.

All of this comes, however, with the trading in of my present life, the life that I have come to form here in Sydney. I feel as though I have swashbuckled my way into these people’s lives, and I will soon swing back out, leaving a hole of ‘what once was’. And along with me leaving a hole, they will keep parts of me, an act that will undoubtedly force me to return and continue to carry on with people who at this point, and undoubtedly more intensely in the future, seem like dreams, a reality that just could not, cannot be true. 

In short, I’m excited to go back, yes. I’m excited for the friends and family and comfort of home, but I’m not excited for the monotonous life that I fear will resume mere months after I land in Eugene. And I fear going back because I fear that I may not return whole, that I’ll be caught between this dream I’ve been living these past four months and the reality that is Oregon. 

This post was supposed to help me get everything out there, all on the table, and make me feel better. It’s just left me more unsettled than before. Oh, and I’m sure it will just read like a bunch of melodramatic crap that some whiny twerp sitting in his apartment in Sydney threw together in a desperate attempt at attention. But it’s what’s inside of me. Take it or leave it.