In Conclusion

Today I woke up in my dorm room, back in the 860 area code, with all of my circadian rhythms set to EST. Life will soon return to the status quo, and I never finished my blog. Excuse me, my AWARD-WINNING blog! (Thanks for the Fall '08 blog award, staff at DIS! That $200 check will definitely be put to good use.)

I spent much of break grappling with my time away, trying to give a sufficient, yet succinct, response that best encapsulates my life in Denmark and beyond. The best I've been able to do thus far? "It was great! Really worth it."

But as the great Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot once said, "is it worth it? Let me work it."

Please indulge as I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it.

I came to Denmark with several abstract goals. None of them related specifically to Denmark the place, though. My answer to "why Copenhagen?" will forever be boring and practical: It was the only Wesleyan-approved program in which I could get credit for both of my majors. So "Denmark" was less this amazing place for which I had an instant, everlasting affinity, but more of a vessel for the greater change I wished to accomplish in myself. Copenhagen was my Walden, so to speak; where I took myself out of comfortable, workaday society to discover who I am and how to "live deliberately, live deep and suck the marrow out of life, to put to rout all that is not life and not, when I came to die, discover I had not lived." (Thoreau)

It is easy to explain time quantitatively. "I went to Denmark. I learned about Danish history and culture. I learned some Danish language, and about child psychology, health care and European film. I learned how to travel around Europe. Blah blah blah." That's shallow. That's too simple. The way I see it, you can learn things anywhere. Just yesterday, I learned that vampires have only 25 chromosomes (my friends at college are weird). Who cares?

And then I realized something else. That isn't normal. Studying abroad is not the status quo. Just going over the ocean and doing it is an accomplishment. Of course, I realized this only after my mother told me that every day for a month. Though my experiences seem conventional to me, that is only because they are my own personal reality. I diminish my accomplishments and believe that simply because they are mine, they are less interesting than everyone else's. The outpouring of affection for this blog from friends, family and strangers has been a tremendous ego boost. Thank you, people.

That's another thing: people. A city is a city. Tolstoy began Anna Karenina with the observation that "all happy families are the same, yet all unhappy families are unhappy in a different way." That extends to cities. All beautiful cities are the same on the surface: the boulevards and backstreets, the breathtaking body of water, the adorable shops and impossibly chic cafes, the gothic/baroque/neoclassical architecture (look, Ma! I know about architecture!)... but what makes or breaks a city, in my opinion, is the people. If you are with people you care about or meet people you care about, the city becomes alive. My favorite cities were Talinn, Paris and Moscow, no doubt in part because of the quality of time spent with friends there.

But when the people are gone, the only breathing thing in that beautiful city is yourself. This brings me to the crux of the value of my time abroad: learning to be me. Living on my own. without a safety net, without the necessary words to relate to people, without a history (or future) was liberating and scary, to be sure. Yet it was more than that. I was given a prime opportunity for a grand reinvention of what it means to be me. And I didn't take it. For me, living abroad was taking the time I needed to sort through myself and all of my hopes, wants, needs, complexities, flaws, contradictions. I discovered myself; not as a botanist discovers an exotic flower, but as an archaeologist finds a broken vase: shard by shard. What did I find? I choose not to put it into words. But I can tell you this: I am at peace with it. Nothing earth-shattering that directed me toward a specific purpose, but I almost hope that never happens.

In conclusion,

What do I say? I'm better at rambling than concluding, as I'm sure you can tell. I want to say something about wanting to live my life with the spirit of a traveler, an appreciation for the comforts of home and a constantly questioning and critical eye on myself and the world around me. Said "world around me" has simultaneously become bigger and smaller, I plan to keep it shrinking and growing.

Thank you for reading.