The End Is Near

I leave in five days.

This is crazy.

It feels weird. I feel like I've been here forever, but I also feel like it was only a few days ago that I was in NYC for orientation.

It's a weird feeling, but one that I've felt before. Around this time last year, the same thoughts were going trough my head.

I can't leave.

I'm FINALLY starting to become confident in my new language.

There's so much I haven't done yet.

So much to learn.

Places to go.

Things to experience.

I can't. Leave.

I feel like I've gone a year back in time to when I left Japan. Rebounding was awful. I spent a lot of time crying. I would see pictures of my friends and family on Facebook and thinking that, if I were still there, that I'd probably be in those pictures. Even now I feel like I've missed so much, that I should have been there. It still hurts, although less sharply.

I'm about to go through all of that again.

It's going to suck.

I mean, it'll be nice to see my friends and family again, but like I said, it feels so incomplete. I need to be here longer. The summer exchanges that I've done have been great, but anyone who's as heavily involved in the exchange world as I am knows that a year is the only way to get the true exchange experience. I feel so deprived of that.

I feel like I fit in so well here. My host family is perfect and amazing and I truly feel like a member if the family. They've shown me so much love and support. My host dad said, in broken English: "This home Grace's home. Everyday." My host mom told me at dinner that even after I leave I will still be part of the family. My host sister plans to visit me in America next year.

They are the absolute best part of my exchange here in Korea. I can't leave them.

I can't deal with this. Just wrapping my mind around the fact that I have to leave my life here behind just kills me. I've already found myself tearing up at the thought of leaving.

But it has been so, so worth it. All the pain that I'll be in this time next week is a small price to pay for all that I've gained by coming to Korea.

I just wish I had more time.

My mind is a jumble of emotions that I cannot convey through words on a computer screen.