It's taken me almost two weeks to make myself write this post. I've been back in Dublin some time now, even if I haven't quite managed to unpack and sort out my real life. Sure enough Seville feels like nothing more than a distant dream now. When I left my apartment, leaving my keys on my desk and double checking I had turned everything off, it was as empty as it was when I arrived in September. Back then everything felt so big and so impossible, and I felt so alone. But as we all know, things always seem impossible until they are done. I wish I could go back and tell myself how amazing everything would turn out to be, but I know myself well enough to know that when I am stressed out and scared, seeing a vision of myself claiming to be from the future probably wouldn't help.
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| saying goodbye to my room :) |
I can't think of how many times I have told myself this past year that if this had been easy I wouldn't have learnt anything from it. For me at least that has turned out to be sound advice. Through all the times I wanted to just give up and go home I have learnt more about myself and other people than I ever thought I would. I'm still not exactly sure who I am or where I am going but I think I've accepted that uncertainty. I am however much more aware of who I am not, and who I don't have to be in order to be content.
There were times on Erasmus that I felt I had been thrown down some sort of rabbit hole. I'm glad that I had friends to turn to and give "that look' whenever something particularly odd happened. While Sevilla to the very last sometimes made me want to put my head in my hands and weep in frustration at how little sense things made, more often towards the end I just shook my head and sighed affectionately at the city that I will never fully understand but which I have grown to love all the same.
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| some highlights. |
I am so thankful to have been given this year, I am very very lucky to have had this opportunity and I have never taken that for granted. Erasmus is a privilege, it is not something we should all consider our right to take part in, nor is it an excuse for a year off and a piss up. It is costly, but gives you so much in return. It is a learning and growing experience like no other. Like the dust that hovers in the dry air and clings to your skin, Spain stays with you and; unlike the dust, cannot be washed off. I don't feel Spanish, but I have observed and absorbed so much of this culture that I don't think this year will ever leave me, and while I never thought I'd say this, the country now feels like my second home.
I will probably be back in Seville, maybe quite soon, maybe a long time away, but it will never be the same as it was when I left it. I will never be the same person I was. The streets will not remember me but I will remember them, their twists and shadows imprinted on my memory. And when they begin to fade, there will still be stories to tell, those disconnected memories that stay with you even when the details are long forgotten.
Here is where this journey ends, for now at least. Thank you all for joining me along the way. Adiós amigos.
