When I came back from Paris after eleven months abroad, I realized something: my family, the people I'm closest to in the whole world, had lived a full year that I knew nothing of. They were the same as always, but changed, and I found myself trying to relate to them in a way that hadn't worked for a year, like trying to fix a fridge the way you used to fix an ice box.
It was upsetting, and disturbing, but understandable. While I didn't cut them out completely, I did intentionally disappear, burying myself in the city and my own soul, trying to figure out what it looked like. I was lost, and needed that time to reform.
It's the only time I've spent significant time abroad; while New York is a full three and a half hours by plane away from Colorado, the family is only two hours and a phone call away. Plus, when I left, I knew I was coming back. I had a year left of school, after all.
This time, as has been previously noted and the cause of all sorts of shenanigans and complications, I just don't know when I'm coming back, and in fact I'm not planning to go back to America to live. Just to visit, a month or two every year. This time I'm separated by thirteen hours and a skype call, or a very expensive phone call.
This isn't a year abroad to find myself, but actually moving abroad, and it's changing my focus. I've been asking my family to send me updates, things about the daily life, little challenges and uncertainties that I would miss otherwise. What they're thinking about, what they're concerned about, triumphs and challenges.
I may live far away, but I don't want to be far away. Space is a distance, but thanks to technology even the other side of the world is just fourteen inches and on the other side of the computer screen away.
Not so very far away at all.
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