jayroop

when i first went to japan, i had no idea what i was getting myself into. on the plane ride over there came a moment when everything stopped and i realized, quite suddenly, that home was far, far away and it would be a long time before i went back. in essence, i realized that the situation i had put myself in was not one that i was prepared for, nor knew how to prepare for. i now had to face the consequence of my seemingly rash decision to study abroad 6 months prior.

what i didn’t understand at that point in time was how the next four and a half months would affect the rest of my life, and the degree to which i would have my outlook on life + the world reshaped. it would be many, many months after i had returned from studying in japan before i started to gain even an inkling of how i would be changed. so when my new friend in sweden, duck, left to return home to korea this week, it reminded me of the solitary feeling of departure and the uncertainty that the future holds for those at the end of a journey, not yet aware of the new ones yet to come.

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for me, the kind of change experienced from living abroad is one that has come from the inside out, and from the outside in. i have opened up to a new reality, a new way of viewing the world – one in which i exist as a struggling entity rather than a knowledgeable adult. thus, the power of traveling and finding yourself in new and unfamiliar territory is something that i will forever embrace as an agent of change that can be deployed at will, time and time again.

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good bye duck, you might not know it yet, but there are wonderful things to come.