Not the last of the Blossoms
Posted by Alan Giles
on Jun 01, 2012
こんにちわロータリー、
As I sit and write, I’ve a month left to go. My host Dad told me, though I’d been doing my best to ignore the date. It’s hard to imagine that this new life of mine will screech to a halt. I won’t be prepared for, try though I might. I’ll be prodded back into my old life, the old mold, but it won’t fit right anymore. It’ll always be uncomfortable enough to remind me It’s time to depart. Your time in Brantford… it’s done. For once I’ve bid farewell to life in high school so too will I bid farewell to the grimy nostalgia that is my hometown, and once again, begin anew. But despite the hope for many meetings and so many new beginnings, I still cling desperately to what left I have here.
This weekend will be my last orientation, the very last time all of the exchange students will be harmonized under one roof. In three weeks we will begin to depart, one by one until there is nobody left. I’ve only three weeks of school left, something I will admit to being grateful for.
As I sit and write, I’ve a month left to go. My host Dad told me, though I’d been doing my best to ignore the date. It’s hard to imagine that this new life of mine will screech to a halt. I won’t be prepared for, try though I might. I’ll be prodded back into my old life, the old mold, but it won’t fit right anymore. It’ll always be uncomfortable enough to remind me It’s time to depart. Your time in Brantford… it’s done. For once I’ve bid farewell to life in high school so too will I bid farewell to the grimy nostalgia that is my hometown, and once again, begin anew. But despite the hope for many meetings and so many new beginnings, I still cling desperately to what left I have here.
This weekend will be my last orientation, the very last time all of the exchange students will be harmonized under one roof. In three weeks we will begin to depart, one by one until there is nobody left. I’ve only three weeks of school left, something I will admit to being grateful for.
Amidst all of this I will be venturing to Tokyo for the first time. How elated I am to have this opportunity is beyond my descriptive capabilities. It’s been the Number 1 on my To Do list since I have arrived, and I had just given up hope when hope shone. Hope in the form of a host family who realized, Hey, this is important to her. We’ll go. It’s just for the weekend, but we’ll go. And for that I can’t thank them enough. My sixth and last.
My birthday, it has come and gone. I celebrated with a good friend and had an impromptu lunch with a fourth host mom once she found out I didn’t have one. I was congratulated time and time over, for 18, I had finally hit it. Over the course of my exchange I have changed so deeply as a person, relieved from so many heavy shackles. I feel as though on that day I turned to my childhood self, gave her a hug and said Farewell for now.
I have been to so many places, seen so many things and experienced so much that many could never hope to. I am most fortunate; these slow days and this slow pace have been super. I feel so collected. So peaceful. I recently drove into the mountains with my friends with snow that towered meters above my head, the silence profound, the nature pure. My friend’s parents recently came to visit her from America and I showed them around. I am living my dream here. Nothing can compete with this.
I’ve been spending so much time with my friends lately, friends that I have not seen near enough of. I love them; they are my new family. My mother says to me: We cannot wait for you to come home! And I feel callous to think: I’m really just looking forward to the food. And my dog. Perhaps the dog, too. It is amazing what we can adapt to as we live in these new lands and climes. To see this world… to be part of something so large, so magnificent—it’s humbling. Some people say that they feel small in a world so large, in a universe so expansive, but I feel big. Big, to be a part of this, because there is so much meaning in it. We all want to feel relevant, feel as though we are participants in this game of life, and I have found that here. I am most happy. But it is not here that the adventure stops—no. This journey I know will be the seed for so many others. This small taste has left me craving for more, for there’s so much more to see, to learn, to experience.
Exchange is for no craven heart, I've learned, and I will walk away with a lion’s. But now, the white gulls are calling me, across the sea, and I will too soon pass into the West, back to my other home. それまで、頑張ろう。