It’s difficult to phrase this post in a way that doesn’t make me sound like an ignorant, arrogant, over-privileged fool, but I will try anyways because it is how I feel and, sometimes, I think my feelings are important for other people to know.
No, I do not “love” studying abroad. Do I like it? Sure. Am I learning? You bet. Do I feel incredibly, over-the-moon grateful to be here? Absolutely. Will I love it eventually? I think so.
I’m sure I will look back on this year in Moscow and see it as one of the most transformative years of my life. However, transformation only comes out of experiences that are really, really damn hard.
There are moments when I think that Moscow is the best city in the entire world. These moments I feel in a tiny, happy fluttering of my heart - a kind of inward shout for joy, most often brought about by relatively unimportant things, like passing a group of schoolchildren on the street or seeing an old lady feed the pigeons. These are moments when I think I will, most certainly, return to work in Moscow after graduating college. However, there are also moments when I don’t know how I could possibly make it another day here. Despite the pictures of stunning cathedrals, new friends and smiling faces, my existence is not made up of one grand escapade after another.
Life doesn’t suddenly become perfect when you’re in a new, exotic place. Life is life everywhere, just as people are people everywhere. Life is beautiful everywhere. Life is hard everywhere.
There are no pictures in my Facebook album of me sobbing in my room when I’m overcome by aching, gnawing, previously unimaginable loneliness. You won’t see any fun videos of me yanking my hair in frustration, as I try to figure out how to respond in Russian to a text message. There are no photos of that sinking, dreadful feeling of not understanding what my teacher is asking me in class. (Not only when I don’t know the answer to a question, but also when I genuinely cannot even understand the vocabulary, which makes up the question itself.) There are no fun captions to describe sudden attacks of social anxiety, when I feel my chest squeezing tight and my stomach tying itself into multiple knots just from making eye contact with a stranger. There is no way to capture the sadness of days when leaving my apartment feels really scary. There is no way to accurately express to you all how petty and mean I can be in my efforts to feel in-control of the many uncontrollable, awkward, and uncomfortable situations, in which I often find myself.
Isn’t that the point of studying abroad? Once you strip away the glamorous, somewhat blinding sheen of it all? I'm here to walk around in someone else’s shoes for a while. A general, borrowed pair of shoes that do not belong to any one person in particular, similar to the shoes we are all forced to wear in a bowling alley. People before me have worn the shoes and people after me will wear the shoes. The shoes are not a permanent part of who I am, but they'll leave me with blisters, calluses, a weird smell, and an itchy rash that will probably never, ever completely go away, no matter how much Cortizone I slap on. This metaphor is getting weird and gross, so I'll stop here. My point is that my situation is temporary, it's scary and, above all, it's a huge, enormous privilege.
Sometimes I’m proud of myself and everything I have accomplished so far in Moscow and, sometimes, I’m ashamed. Either way, I’m learning how to be a person. I’m trying, I’m struggling, and it’s really hard, and it’s really real.
So, let’s all treat it as such. Thank you very much.