When you’re growing up, you have this idea that time moves slowly. Nothing ever moves fast enough. You’re continually asking “are we there yet?!” to your parents’ horror and annoyance. At least for me, I spent most of my childhood itching to get out, to explore, to see what else the world had in store for me. Now, as I’m coming to the end of the first term of my last year at Drexel, I find myself continually asking where the time has gone.
It’s really incredible, when you least expect it and in the blink of an eye, years can pass without you really noticing. And if years can pass in the blink of an eye, well then a semester can pass in mere milliseconds! And I think that’s just what happened while I’ve been in Costa Rica…
I keep asking myself over and over how long I’ve actually been here and what the heck I’ve been doing with my time? How is it Thanksgiving already?? Didn’t fall just start in the States? I guess not…
In just a few short days, my program will be over, my boyfriend will be in Costa Rica, and I will get to spend some much need R&R with him in this little tropical paradise before I have to return to the northeast’s bitter winter. It’s amazing how quickly time can just go-go-go by without us taking time to reflect on the recent past or on our current state of being.
I’ve complained during my time in Costa Rica, there’s no doubt about that. I was not expecting the program I received, and it took me a good bit of time to adjust. It was hard adjusting to life with a family again and learning new house rules. It was difficult trying to make new friends when it seemed I had missed the friend-making portion of the study abroad experience.
But through all these difficult readjustments, so many beautiful things have been born. I am leaving Costa Rica with incredible new friends scattered all throughout the States, and a new mindset that I had not expected to acquire. I am leaving after having made a wonderful relationship with my host family, and coming to love, adore and truly care for my host mom in a way I had really not expected. I am leaving after making wonderful connections with my professors, all of whom are really incredible people in their own right and have had inspiring stories to share with us.
While this may not have been the semester I expected, it was one I’ll never forget. Nothing in life is what we expect it to be, and if it were, well life would be horribly boring.
PS- the picture is something I found on a bathroom stall that reads “without women, there is no revolution.” I thought it was appropriate and inspirational for this final farewell 🙂
