So it's come to this

Two weeks from today I will be in transit home (for 2 months). Not that I am particularly ready to reflect on everything Romania just yet, I have a feeling that will come after separating myself for a few weeks and "detoxing" from the experience.

We are taken to many strange places in our lives. Places that expand our minds, force us to grow and allow us to change. Over the last four years I have changed, I will be the first to admit it, but I can't help but feel that peoples opinions of me have changed as well.

This is something many will not understand. I'm not talking about taking a two week mission trip and coming home changed (for a month then reverting back to the way things were), I talking about something that only people that live abroad for an extended period of time can understand. Immersed in the culture, struggling to communicate, feeling like an outsider all of the time, cherishing the monumental little things (finding cheese, a conversation that went well, bumping into someone randomly from university), these can only change you permanently and fundamentally.

I received my RSVP for my 10 year high school reunion, which got me thinking. I have nothing in common with any of the people that I saw everyday for 13 years. Outside of growing up in the same town. How do converse with these people? I will not be finding out this time around.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, I haven't decided yet) I won't be attending my 10 year, as I am required to be in the Dominican Republic for the start of the school year. It is at least saving me from some very awkward conversations with people I haven't spoken to in, most likely, 10 years.

Four years, three continents (Asia, Central America, Europe), amazing holidays, lovely people, only a handful of people that truly understand what my life is like. I haven't given up looking for more.