To Live Will Be an Awfully Big Adventure - Peter Pan

          Ten months ago today, I left the only home I had ever known and started on the crazy adventure that was this year. And tomorrow, I will leave my new home here. I've always known deep down that eventually this year would end and I would go home. But when you are experiencing your first days in your new country and you have ten months left, it seems like you have forever. But then, somehow, you find yourself sitting where I am, with ten months behind you and just days left. 

          Physically, I am ready to go. My bags are packed, presents have been bought, goodbyes have been said. But I know that I will never truly be ready to leave this place. Just as I wasn't ready to leave home ten months ago, I'm not ready to leave my new home. But I don't think anyone is every really ready to do anything. If we stayed waiting around to be ready, we would never do anything. And so, the time has come for me to go. I know that my time in Turkey isn't over. This part of my life in Turkey is ending; the part where I go to school and live with a family and get to live a real life here. But Turkey will always be home to me, just as much as the U.S. is. I know I will come back here, and I can't wait for the day when I do. 

          This year has been the absolute hardest thing I have ever done. But it has also been the most amazing thing I have ever gotten to experience. I will miss so much about this year, from the food to speaking Turkish to the skyline filled with mosques to the buses to my family to the organized chaos that is my daily life here. I will miss it all. But these things will always be a part of me. This year and this experience will remain a huge part of who I am for the rest of my life because this time has changed who I am and how I see the world. 

          For so long, my return has been so hyphothetical to me that I haven't put much thought into what it will be like to go back to the life I had before this year. But as it's gotten closer and closer, I've started to think more and more about it. And I am honestly so scared. I'm scared that the space I left will no longer fit the person I have become. But I think that going home will be the next big adventure.

          With every goodbye comes the start of the next adventure. When I said goodbye to everything I have ever known in the U.S. I started this wild ride. And I know another great adventure awaits me back at home. Because life truly is an awfully big adventure. 

          And so, I say goodbye. This will be the last time I post from Turkey. It won't be the end of this blog, but I don't know when I will next sit down to write. Thank you to everyone who read this during this past year and saw me through the twists and turns of the roller coaster that was this year. Goodbye for now! Thank you!