Another treasure hunt
The original article in the zine.
Today’s blog post is an article I wrote for the Danish student magazine Anekdot Zine. It’s about the fear you sometimes feel when moving on to a new chapter in life - something many students abroad feel, but it might also ring true for you. I’ve translated it from the original Danish, which can be found here. Hope you enjoy!
It's a warm day in July. The heat from the Tube billows around me on the escalator, which stretches up steeply towards infinity. On the street, I'm immediately surrounded by a bustling crowd, but when I turn left at the first side street, I find an abrupt silence, a parallel world of treetops and old buildings. The further I make my way in, the more the neighbourhood opens up. Highly polished glass facades and narrow, car-free streets. Now, I’m on the London School of Economics and Political Science campus and on my way to the introductory course of my master's degree. In the classroom, I find a sea of excited faces; we exchange smiles and ‘can I sit next to you?’.
The head of our department welcomes us. The professor is young and funny and has prepared a quiz about the faculty. We introduce ourselves to each other; we are students from all over the world, the US, Hong Kong, Norway, Denmark. Our professor says that we’ve now become part of a world-leading philosophy faculty. He says we’re at the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. Though most important, he says, are you guys, the students – it’s the greatest gift of all to be able to learn from the viewpoints of your classmates. The group looks around at one another, we feel a certain pride in having entered this programme, we feel proud to be able to enrich each other's lives. It's going to be an exciting year, we already know that.
Next point is a scavenger hunt - everyone has to go out and complete different tasks and challenges, take pictures, learn more about London, film small segments and get to know each other better. We really ought to split into smaller teams, it's a competition after all and you move faster with fewer people in a group. But we run along together and now there's no stopping us. Conversations surge in the crowd, no one really wants to go their separate ways, everyone is new and interesting. I look around, at the young and beautiful people, smiles from ear to ear - I think, couldn’t I become good friends with the girl with freckles over her nose or the tall guy from Iceland?
I remember flashes of my fresher’s days at my undergrad in Oxford a few years ago. I remember how exciting it all was, the newness, the conversations, the city, the tutorials, the assignments, the squeals and laughter, the parties and friendships - and then I remember: saying goodbye to them, parting ways, graduation, the last celebration. To feel the heart break apart a little, being alone. The feeling of not knowing what comes now. That everyone is going home.
Someone asks me a question and at once, I’m back at the treasure hunt. It's a new assignment and we're filming a scene from Romeo and Juliet at the opera in Covent Garden. I'm supposed to be Juliet, stabbing herself in the chest. They film while we act out the scene and applaud when we're done. I look around at their happy faces and think, I wonder who of you will be my new best friends? Who will become heartbreak, become loss and memories? I feel a fear deep in my stomach, the thought of losing them is taken so far in advance. I'm afraid of letting them in and starting all over again.
Is it worth it, when I know we have to say goodbye again in a year?
As I get home in the evening, I tell my housemates about my day and the new impressions. About my fear of losing, even though we haven't even started. They nod sympathetically. It's hard to start over again and again. It's hard to move from your high school group in Copenhagen, to a new group of friends at undergrad, and then to move to London and pull up your roots all over again. But that's how it is, and how it has to be when travelling and living life away from home. We leave and are left behind. I can feel myself wanting to hold back, drawing a shield around myself, because it has been so painful to say goodbye to good friends and feel how we move on in our lives.
As LSE quickly becomes everyday life, I'm still a little reluctant. I lie alone in my room, scrolling through social media. I see a post with the text: ‘The time will pass by anyway – ’
It hits me that it's better to share my everyday life with other people, because time will move on either way. Maybe saying goodbye doesn't have to be so scary.
In a way, living abroad makes a fundamental condition of life really clear: nothing lasts forever. It's easier to overlook when we’re back home, where friendships might drift apart a little slower. But these different periods of life will also end, even if we're not as aware of it at home.
I have to see my fear as a gift, because it makes me acutely aware of what is valuable right now. Instead of focusing on the fear, I can try to appreciate what I have, now that I'm lucky enough to be aware of its fleetingness. Hopefully, this will help me enjoy all the chance encounters that turn into friendships, and the time we get to spend together. Even a short moment can have a long-lasting effect.
It has been many months since I took that escalator up to my new life in London. Now time has passed, and the fear is gone. I still live in London, and I finished my master's degree. I can see that some friendships do continue. What you've learned also stays with you. I get to keep some friends longer than others. I might even return home myself one day. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing, because who I've become is because of everyone I've met. And I've found that a ‘goodbye’ is actually often just a ‘see you again’. Without the experience abroad and without the different stages - emotions, fears, friendships, joys - I would not be me. I am infinitely richer than I could have ever imagined because of it.
Originally published in “ANEKDOT version Skræk” from August 2024. Edited by Mads Hvidkær Christoffersen, Amanda Leloup, and Bianca Michelle Rasmussen.
Translated from Danish by Bianca Michelle Rasmussen.
