When I made the decision to come to Christchurch to study for the semester, it was in the hopes of discovering something, as elusive and ambiguous as that seems.
So what have I learned over the past week? Or what do I think that I've learned anyways...?
For one, I never want to take the people in my life for granted. My friends, my family, my wonderful girlfriend... I miss them all tremendously. I expected to miss them all, of course, but perhaps not to the extent that I have. Relationships, like most things in life, are strange. Sometimes you can be unsure of them and their value, but when they are ripped away from you, it hurts (I use the phrase "ripped away" loosely here... New Zealand was a decision I made willingly, though perhaps without full consideration of the things I was leaving behind).
Certainly (or hopefully?) they will all be waiting for me upon my return; life could revert back to the exact state it was when I left. But a part of me is very scared. In life, change is constant. How will things exist five months from now? More specifically, how will people close to me change over the next few months?
I guess my fears are simple: that some of the strongest bonds I have formed will weaken or, much worse, break. Then I'll be confronted with the harsh reality that if I do indeed lose anything or anyone, I can blame nobody but myself. This is difficult to accept.
Hopefully these are pessimistic thoughts and life will, in fact, resume uninterrupted in June, but the doubts will always linger. And how can they not? As I said, change is constant; that applies to me as well. The person I am in a few months will surely be different from the person I am as I write this now. This is not a good or a bad thing, merely a reality that must be accepted. As they say:
Time and tide wait for no man.
The sun has set on my first week in Canterbury, but it will rise again tomorrow.
And I take comfort in that.
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