Hi there. It’s been quite a while since I last posted something on this blog so I guess I should start by saying hello J

Let’s start at the beginning, my posts ended very abruptly last year when I started packing my bags to leave Thailand and come back to South Africa. It was a surreal experience, I got my departure date wrong somehow (thanks mom) and had to leave a day earlier than expected so I left ¾ of my things and Thailand and had a very rushed goodbye. This might have been a blessing in disguise now that I look back at that day.

I have been back in South Africa for a year now and it has crossed my mind a few times to do a blog update, but I just have not been able to collect my thoughts just yet. Well not until now. When people tell you exchange will change your life you kind of know what that entitles, believe me when I say you have no idea just how much.  There are no words to try and explain it but I’ll do my best to try. When you start debating the idea of going on exchange you are about 15 years old (at least I was) it seems so exciting, you get to travel, you get to spend a year away from your parents, you get to submerse yourself in a different culture and experience things you would never be able to experience back home. Every single part of it seems amazing! Personally I felt like getting away would help me find myself; help me figure out what life was about and how I could get on top of things. So I gave in my essays and went for the interviews and did some more essays and some more interviews and then it hits you like a ton of bricks. I’m actually going to have to leave, I’m actually going to give up a year of school and leave my family behind, I’m going to leave my friends and my boyfriend and my country and I’m going to go and live in Thailand. Don’t get me wrong, all of those initial emotions are still there but reality hits harder than you can ever imagine. So there I was, 16 years old standing in the middle of the airport feeling like I’m going to throw up I’m so nervous. I said goodbye to my family and friends and forced myself to stop crying as soon as I walked through the departures gate.

I had the most amazing year of my life, yes I hated the first few weeks but my goodness was it worth it. I grew up, in more ways than one. I had so much fun exploring, learning and trying new things. I travelled; I got to see parts of the world that I don’t know if I ever would have seen otherwise. I made lifelong friends that made every step of the way worthwhile. One of the very best parts, I got a second family. There is no way I could ever even try to make you guys understand how amazing it is when you find pure love and appreciation for another  family in your heart. I miss them so much. I am so grateful for every minute of my year as an exchange student. I am grateful to my family for letting me go and helping me every step of the way, I’m grateful to Rotary for giving me the opportunity, I’m grateful to every person in Thailand that took the time to teach me the little things, or gave me a hug, explained something to me, or just took the time to get to know me. I would not trade that year of my life for anything.

No matter what I don’t think I could have prepared myself for what it was like to come back home from exchange. I think I might even have been more scared to come back than I was leaving in the first place. I don’t know how to talk about being back home because even now a year later I still can’t fully place my emotions. The only way I can try to explain it is to say it is like taking me from earth and placing me on mars, just when I get used to mars take me away from mars and place me somewhere in the universe where all I can do is float. I have never been so lost in my life. While I had been away my grandmother found out she had cancer and I had to face the implications of that first hand for the first time.  A few weeks after I got home my parents got divorced. We had to move. Most of my friends had moved on and made new friends and some of them just weren’t at all the way I remembered them. I came to the realization that things would not work out between myself and my (ex) boyfriend ever again. I had to go back to school and get used to the reality that my friends where a year ahead of me and I had to try and make new friends all over again just after I left my new, new friends behind in Thailand. I had seen so much, learnt so much and I could not get myself to go back to normal life that was now not the normal I was used to at all. Everything was upside down and inside out and I wasn’t the person my family was used to anymore and my family had changed and life had changed and nothing was the way I wanted it to be or pictured it in my mind.

I don’t think I have ever been that unhappy in my life.

I have been home for a year and a few days. I can now finally say things are starting to look up. I never thought this would be my life at 18. I never thought I would have to find this type of strength inside myself at such a young age. I never thought I would be the person I am today and I’m so truly grateful.  There were a lot of tears I had to cry through, a lot of battles that left me broken and bruised, I was shattered had my heart ripped in two, I was broken. There were a lot of times I stumble and crashed, when I was on the edge down to my last chance, so many times that I was convinced I was over. But I had to fall, to rise above it all. I’m grateful for the storm because it made me appreciate the sun, I’m grateful for the pain and everything that made me brave. I’m grateful for my scares because they only make my heart grateful.

I’m so thankful for this amazing experience