Before leaving for my Paris trip, I wondered for months about who I was going to be friends with, what my host family would be like, and how this trip would change me. Would I become more independent? Happier? Lonelier? Confident?
I stayed up till 2 am almost every night for a month before leaving for Paris, and, after my usual games of Solitaire burning brightly off my phone screen, I would shut off the strong light and stare into the darkness of my comfortable and familiar bedroom. I felt some of the same pings of anxiety that I did before moving 1,500 miles away from home when I decided to attend Sewanee. Eyes wide with excitement and fear, packing my bags and leaving for Paris for 6 weeks didn't feel real to me until I landed at the Charles de Gaulle airport, when my first thought was "oh ok I guess I should actually start believing that this is happening."
Now, I'm over halfway finished with my abroad experience. Sitting on the metro, headphones in, staring off into the graffiti-ridden tunnels, as if to not make eye contact with any strangers, I find myself immersed into a phenomenon that is so foreign to my simple, rural life in Tennessee. I am, for once, completely surrounded by people who know nothing about me. My name, my hometown, my history, or why I am even in Paris to begin with are all unknown to the hundreds of people I pass in the metro and on the streets of this new and spectacular city.
Once and a while I'll receive a text from a good friend saying something like "see you in 3 weeks!" or "can't wait to be back at school!" that rips me from this alternative mystery life into my "old" life. My real life.
I've made great friends here, seen amazing sights, learned much more French, and gained confidence in my abilities, but I won't really know how this trip has changed me until I return to the United States. I definitely know that I am a changed person, but how I interact with my friends and family back in my familiar haunts is unknown to me.
