You’re going abroad, how exciting that is. You’re about to face a lot of adventures and challenges.
You're getting through the airport doors, trying to find the place you have to check-in. You're nervous, a little bit sweaty and you're carrying your huge luggage. These past weeks have been intense: farewells, getting all your paperwork ready, perhaps ending some stages of your life you're not sure they will be reopened. They have been indeed; intense weeks and you may have experienced a mix of feelings as days were passing by.
It's a unique sensation, isn't it? That feeling when you travel to experience new adventures abroad, feeling all those hours full of adrenaline before arriving at your destination and yet, besides the excitement, a sparkle of nostalgia invades your soul. Because you're leaving family and friends behind and, as you're getting into the airport thinking of everything new you have ahead of you, you start reminiscing on those amazing days you've had in your hometown with them all. That's the reason why you're now holding a letter in your hand with all your thoughts. With everything, you need to say to them. You don't really know what you plan to do with that letter. Maybe keep it for yourself, maybe send it by the post office to those you are referring to in it. But you wrote many important things there.
You wrote how happy you are to start living in a new country and meeting new people. How much do you desire to expand your knowledge and open your mind even more. And you say how thankful you are for everything they have brought you. You ask them not to worry as you will be fine, growing up and evolving as a person. It is partly thanks to them, and you know that.
In any case, and being fully honest, you also wrote down in that letter deeper thoughts. How tough you felt saying goodbye to your beloved ones, those last hugs that will last forever. How much you're going to miss them knowing that maybe, for one reason or another, some of you will end up following different paths and falling apart. Because that can happen. It doesn't matter how long you will be abroad, there's always a chance to develop yourself in a different way and end up in different points of your life. It doesn't mean to be bad, for this is life. You just need to feel lucky in any case, as every person may have marked you in some way and shaped you the way you are now. And, of course, there will always be friends who won't really care where you live, they will always be with you. They will catch the first plane to visit you.
As you write all that down, you also think about the fact that leaving your hometown is not a permanent farewell either. You know you'll come back. Maybe at the very end of your experience abroad, maybe for holidays or to visit those people you love so much the very moment you miss them. You write down how much you're going to miss your place, your streets, your favourite café. But you also realise you will have another city to call “home”, new streets to discover and wander around, amazing places to explore. Besides, you'll meet incredible people. You'll create a second family.
See? Among all the nostalgia and all the mixed feelings, you can only end up taking this adventure on the positive side. That letter you're holding is full of personal thoughts and feelings, of common fears and worries, that may wrap up that characteristic sensation I was referring to at the beginning of this post. But in the end, you know everything is going to be fine. Everything will be the way it has to be.
You have passed the control zone, ready to find your boarding gate when, to your surprise, you can't find the letter. It's not in your hand anymore. You may have let it go at some point. You sit down shocked on an airport seat, surrounded by planes and people ready to follow their dreams. There is something poetic, even romanticised, on that: a farewell letter lost somewhere in the airport that will never be delivered. Somehow you had to let it go. But you don't have to worry, they know. Everything you said in that letter, they know it somehow. They can feel it.
Now, with all your thoughts and feelings in order, you go through the boarding gate. Ready to start this new adventure that will bring you nothing but good moments and experiences you will share with those beloved ones when you come back. They will be waiting for a new letter.
