Blog #4
Before taking my gap year, I realized that I would be away from home for an extended period of time and therefore, miss many events and holidays with my family. Surprisingly enough, those moments were not that hard emotionally. What I found the hardest was the times where I had to say goodbye to my friends that I had made while in Belgium. The first time this happened was at the start of November. This is when my closest friend at that point had to go home early. I was able to spend the last few days with her and also go to the airport with her to say goodbye. And a few weeks before, we went on a trip to Barcelona with a bunch of other exchange students. When she finally left I was beyond sad and also a bit scared that I wouldn’t become close with any other student or that I wouldn’t become as close friends with someone like I did with her. At the moment that it had all happened, I couldn’t see any positives that would come from this. The week after, I did everything that I would normally do, just without her. From doing this, I was able to hang out with other students that I did not usually before. While I was still extremely sad that my friend had left, I slowly found myself becoming happier again with the new people I was surrounding myself with.
I was able to make new best friends faster than I had imagined. I had almost forgotten about the sadness that I felt in the times right after my friend had left. Every now and then I would be reminded of a good memory shared between us or I would think about something that I wish I could do with her, but more often I would be so busy or focused on the good, new memories that I was making with other people.
As more time went on, I was able to look entirely on the bright side of the situation that made me incredibly sad before. Because I had made new close friends, I was given more opportunities to do with them. With my new friends I was also bringing myself to do new things that I was too scared or nervous to do before. My new friends and I had opportunities to experience new cities within Belgium together, and once they even brought me on a trip to Germany with them. I was also experiencing new things with them in my own city, along with other cities. These were things that I had been wanting to do for a while, but was too scared to try before, and some were things that my new friends taught me about.
In the end, I was able to find positives from an event that at first had me devastated. In this whole process, I think that I was taught to think more positively even in very negative times, and to also not get stuck on negative things because there may be a bigger, better ending that comes out of it.
