Intercambio

‎"A semester has passed and now we stand on the brink, of returning to a world where we are surrounded by the paradox of everything and yet nothing being the same.
In a couple of weeks we willreluctantly give our hugs and, fighting the tears,we will say goodbye to people who were once just names on a sheet of paper to return to people that we hugged and fought tears to say goodbye to before weever left.
We will leave our best friends to return to our best friends.
We will go back to the places we came from, and go back to the same things we did last summer and every summer before.
Wewill come into town on that same familiar road, and even though it has been months, it will seem like only yesterday.
As you walk into your old bedroom, every emotion will pass through you as youreflect on the way your life has changed and the person you have become.
You suddenly realize that the things that were most important to you a semester ago don't seem to matter so much anymore, and thethings you hold highest now, no one at home will completely understand.
Who will you call first?
What will you do your first weekend home with your friends?
Where are you going to work?
Who will beat the party Saturday night?
What has everyone been up to in the past few months?
Who from school will you keep in touch with?
How long before you actually start missing people barging in withoutcalling or knocking?
Then you start to realize how much things have changed, and you realize the hardest part of being an exchange student is balancing the two completely different worlds you nowlive in, trying desperately to hold on to everything all the while trying to figure out what you have to leave behind.
We now know the meaning of true friendship.
We know who we have kept in touch withover the past semester and who we hold dearest to our hearts.
We've left our worlds to deal with the real world.
We've had our hearts broken, we've fallen in love.
There have been times when...