Counting Down to Change

My time is wearing thin; I'm not saying that I'm starting to feel wrinkly, but rather as if I've hit a wrinkle in time. I just purchased my return ticket, one-way, to the United States of America. I'd like to say that I am “headed home” in July, but that words tastes funny on my now tri-lingual tongue. My father is living in a new house, my mother is about to move into her new house, I will return to a new apartment and my brother will probably not even be in the same country next year. What does this mean? To attempt an explanation: home is beginning to take on a German accent.

I have now hit my 13 month mark of living in Germany and thus the ideas of home are naturally starting to reverse themselves. Now, the countdown begins. 43 days. The sheer amount of accumulated material possessions is starting to weigh me down kilo by airline approved kilo. The stretched distance of the Atlantic ocean that will stand between my love and I seems to lose every echo I curse at it. I have stacks of maps, postcards, and brochures filed as neatly as a haystack might be. My poor hard-drive is overloaded with smiling photos and my suitcase is giving me a sneer rather than the usual wink. What is happening here? 43 days.

Challenge becomes my comfort zone
(Groningen, the Netherlands)

No exaggeration, I am sitting in my warm kitchen with the rain tapping the window and a glass of Rot Wein (red wine) beside my computer while the smells of fresh herbs wafting from my window garden are teasing my senses as I write this. Today, I chatted with my roommate in German, invented a new dish, had a fresh pretzel from the baker by school and received my daily nod and wave from the silent man who lives above his shoemaker shop on the corner. I feel as if my cup is not only full but brimming with happiness and opportunity. Though the US is often nicknamed the “Land of Opportunity,” I feel as if my heart is calling me to dwell on different shores.

The sun sets over the snowy gardens
during Christmastime in Oldenburg, Germany

Admittedly, my parents' reactions to this realization are not what I expected; they seem to look forward to the European trips they can now justify but are fairly quiet as to their own emotions about me being so far away. Perhaps they realized a long time ago that I had a different calling. Perhaps they're keeping their true emotions to themselves in order to let me be individually inspired and jump out of the proverbial nest as far as my international wings will carry me. I must admit that I fear being so far away from them, being so far removed from familial relations, holidays and laughter. This life is most definitely not what I had expected, but it fills me with excitement everyday that my eyes settle on a German sunset (sunrises are often missed by my sleeping-in eyes).

Alas, this journey I've chosen shall not be an easy one. Two final semesters in the US will mark the greatest decision-making time that my 23 years of life will have seen. 43 days.

Finding peace in Freiberg am Neckar, Germany