The Climb Back
About the author: Ky Friedman ’23 is an FSI The Europe Center Global Policy Intern with the Centre for European Policy Studies. Ky is currently an Engineering Physics major at Stanford University.
I don’t get homesick.
As a kid addicted to exploring the outdoors, I didn’t spend all that much time in my childhood home, so the sudden listing and sale of my parents’ house did not come with extensive tears. They sold it and moved from Los Angeles to Colorado Springs while I was still in high school. I moved in with my best friend’s family to finish out my education before moving to Stanford. Then I was ripped away from campus due to COVID and flown to Colorado to a house I had never lived in before moving to Santa Cruz for a year during sophomore year. This “temporariness” of all my living situations continued in college, as it does for most students.
I don’t quite have a “home,” so I don’t get homesick.
So why was I so stressed? Why did I go back to my apartment after work just to call friends back in the states instead of exploring Europe? I wasn’t in over my head, I should have been in the “growth zone,” but I wanted to be back in the US desperately, to sit at a Denny’s and order free refills of ice-cold Fanta, glowing radioactive orange, made without real fruit juice unlike the Fanta they sell in Europe. Why? Was I wasting my precious time in Europe?
To this day, I don’t quite know what came over me. I had my routine, I loved the area I was living in, and by the end of summer it was more natural for me to say “pourrais-je avoir” than “could I have.” But all-in-all, I was homesick.
After about a month of reflection, here’s what I’ve realized:
First off, there is no such thing as wasting time if you’re with loved ones. I flew directly from Brussels to Philadelphia to see my girlfriend before flying to Colorado to see my parents. Neither of these places were “home” and they certainly weren’t the world-expanding experiences of visiting Berlin or Paris, but god did it feel good to hug the people I love who live in those cities.
Second, not all adventure is the same. I seek out adventures, to find unique and beautiful places which require risks to get to. For me, this could mean sliding down an ice field atop a mountain in Alaska as I did last summer (I lived obviously) or potentially driving across the country through the snow in a rear-wheel drive Volvo from the 80s, slipping the whole way. This is my growth zone. But somehow, the adventure of speaking French everyday, being so far from friends and family, and struggling to find a regular pack of Oreos just wasn’t my preferred adventure.
Three, despite my homesickness, I had made deep connections in Brussels, such that I now am missing my friends back in Europe.
I knew I would miss them dearly. So the last weekend in Brussels, my close friend Harry, another intern fresh out of Oxford and the London School of Economics, and I chose to spend the weekend together, not traveling, but just soaking in Brussels before I left. He had found this old church that had been converted to a climbing gym. What better way to say goodbye to such a good friend than to spend the day lifting each other up.
We tried out different routes on the wall until we had each found different routes that we chose as our “challenges.” Coaching each other, calling out advice, and sometimes just yelling at the other to “do it” got us to the top of our challenge routes.
I know what you’re thinking: “Oh god he is going to make a cringy comparison to how this was the same as how he and Harry helped each other through the challenging experience of adapting to the unique environment of Brussels and the rigor of working at a think tank.” Well, you’re right. It was exactly the same. Without Harry holding my rope this summer, I wouldn’t have felt accomplished as I flew home. I wouldn’t have cried that last night after sitting in Flagey Square chatting about our friendship and what it’ll mean to see him again inevitably in years to come. If the “top” meant leaving Brussels with a smile on my face and pride to return back to the US, then I owe it to that silly Brit.
So was Europe home? Will it ever be for me? No. But as I said in point one: time spent with loved ones is never wasted. So long Brussels, I’ll see you soon. That might be through seeing Harry in London, but it’ll be Brussels just the same.
