The magic I got from my exchange year

    People say you learn a lot during your year abroad. Not only as an exchange student, but as an explorer in a foreign country in general. Hell, we learn a lot every single day. For me tho, there are pretty incredible things I got from my second life that I still hold close to me and without a doubt I definitely would not have created a life like this for myself today if I had not fallen in love with YFU 6 years ago.

    You know the saying that Love is a feeling. It is easy to find connections between love and an exchange year. I love my year that I had and that year gave me a feeling which will never leave.

What I got from that experience?

    First of all, it is not what I got, but what I left there. A piece of me is still in Texas, sitting in Chapps and waiting for my bacon avocado cheeseburger with extra fries. And it is good to hide behind that one piece in every once in a while. When things get rough today, I bring in a thought or two of my exchange year. It helps me to remind that even if a situation seems boring, helpless, pointless, useless and not entertaining enough, I will fall in love with that moment once it is gone anyway so better to enjoy it now than look at pictures later while blaming myself why the hell did I not enjoy this time enough.

    I got a feeling of regret. I regret that I did not take all my chances, that I did not open all doors, that I did not ask as much as I could have asked and I regret that I took it as a mission to complete not as a year to enjoy. Sounds a little too negative you think. For me it is a positive thing. You learn from your mistakes, right? I have these regrets about the time when I was in the U.S and that is what led me to a quote that ,,if you are gonna regret not doing it later, then do it now, no matter how and what you need to make it happen but you will find a way,, so no regrets and I know I hurt feelings sometimes, but I have to be an egoist on that point, because I do not wanna regret things that did not happen, I wanna have memories to remember.

    What I got, you ask? I got a sense of humanity and a feeling that no one can ever take away from me. Totally out of topic, but for me it kind a relates to the fact of what I got from all that. One day, about a year ago, as I started cleaning out my google drive I found a folder that is still sitting there. It's titled "Keller High School". I mean, I do know that I still have some of my school work and essays from the U.S, but ever since I've been back in Estonia, I've never really read them through again. That morning I did. The feeling that I got was more than weird. Who knows me well, knows how much my point of view and priorities have changed, but in this moment, as I was reading those old short stories, poems and Interior Design projects, I felt like I was still this 16-year old girl, sitting on my bed in Keller and trying to pull of a good homework to impress my teachers. It was a warm feeling, because although I have partly put this year behind me and don't remember much of it, reading these made me rememeber exactly how I felt during my exchange year, how I saw things, how silly and happy I was and how undescribingly different everything was back there. 

    Sometimes I go through my blog. It usually just makes me homesick for America, so I normally read older posts for only about 15 minutes or so, but today was different. It didn't make me miss my year, it made me feel as if I was still there. As I was still a Junior in KHS and it made me feel as I could just text Liz and tell her to come pick me up. It made me feel as there was sun shining outside, but not welcoming cause it's too hot. It made me feel as I would still be nervous about getting those last essays to turn it in and it made me feel as if there was still a soft white carped under my feet as I step out of the bed. It made me feel like home.

    I feel like the fact that even after 3 years, I still feel the need to add something to this blog, shows exactly how an exchange year can crawl into your heart and lock itself there for the eternity.

    Most importantly, I dedicate this post to my YFU students, who I got to hug and send off to their "American experience" about half a year ago. They are partly a reason I am posting this draft. You guys still have 6 months left, and don‘t forget that You are living Your dream right NOW - go find Yourself that "Fun USA" Y‘all were dreaming about in July. 

I am going to finish this post up by adding a video that DC made. It was one of the best days of my life, definitely the coolest day I had in the States and spent with people I wish were still here by my side. I want to say thank You guys for giving me those memories - one day, I hope, we are going to cook a delicious breakfast again and listen to some old school hip hop music in the car that is (Beth this is for You:..) "Totally inappropriate, totally, absolutely inappropriate." I love You guys to the moon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyzQca289y8

ELO 2019, USA 1 - USA 2 kodugrupid