Musings towards the 'end' of the 1st exchange

Generally I think of myself as quite an optimistic person. 

Even if a situation is looking impossible, depressing, and completely opposite to how I would like it to be, I usually can’t scrape away that little part of me that thinks it will all work out. This seems to go hand in hand with my slightly irrational life approach that if you expect something to pan out in a particular way, it won’t. This has served me particularly well when taking off the runway on various flights (expecting the tail to hit the ground has so far prevented it from happening) as well as walking dark streets at night by myself (less confident that this is a good approach). 

However now I’m questioning whether my complete refusal to think about never seeing many of my exchange friends again – and definitely not seeing them all together again – was the right choice. It’s not the first time that I’ve met people overseas and felt so close and alike to them that we could be family. It brings truth to the overused cliché that ‘my friends are my family’ – it’s a cliché for a reason, friends are the family that you choose for yourself and all that. Talking about it with one of them over here, we also discussed how at home, a lot of your friends (as much as I love them) are close to you because you’ve grown up with them and/or they know so much about you. Whereas on exchange, you are friends with people because when you meet them, something connects despite knowing nothing about them or their past.

You have one particularly interesting conversation that makes you want to know more.

Or they make you laugh, really really easily.  

They see things in a totally different way and make you want to see them in the same way.

You act completely naturally because they don’t know anything about you and have no expectations.

You have adventures together,

you see and try and taste and share new things and experiences with them, you make mistakes with them,

you live with them,

you don’t have time to waste fucking each other around or lying to each other,

you can ask for hugs whenever you want because one day in the near future they won’t be able to give them to you...

You spend 24 hours a day with them and then miss them an hour later when they’re not around. 

Best housemates ever!

I have several incredibly close friends that I have discovered this semester, people I hope that when I see them again nothing will have changed, and that will be my friends for life. When I think about it, it amazes me how we managed to find each other. If Grainne hadn’t broken up with her boyfriend and gone crazy, would we still find ourselves at a loss whenever one of us is away? Would I have eaten two blocks of chocolate today, or managed to watch a whole tv series in two days? If Alejandro, Giacomo and Tony hadn’t coincidentally booked the exact same dates in Budapest as Bahar and I, would I have become closer with another group and considered them my family instead? Would I have gone to Morocco? Going back even further, if I hadn’t accidentally followed a different group of people than my introduction group on the orientation day to a cafe, if I wasn’t intending to go to Turkey and hadn’t used that to struck up a conversation with the girl I had happened to sit next to, if we had waited until we had had more than one conversation to book trips together, would I have another life-long best friend in the crazy, insane, hilarious, exciting chaos that is Bahar?

Bang gang in Budapest

Isn't it amazing how things fall together like this? I couldn't think of a place I would rather be right now in my life. I couldn't think of people I would rather be spending my time with, discussions I'd rather be having, or addresses I'd rather be collecting for postcard purposes.

So if I ever find myself regretting something that I had or hadn't done in my life - doesn't happen very often anyway - I think about how all the things I have or haven't done, or said or didn't say, or perhaps even thought, led me up to this point.

And that stops me from thinking 'I wish I'd spent more time seeing the Dutch countryside instead of sitting inside for a whole day watching movies'...because who knows whether or not Giaco and I would be such good friends now if we hadn't "wasted" a whole day inside watching TV (something I would hate to find myself doing at home)...