After spending the last evening with your loved ones, you are on your way back home. As the trees rush by the window of the van you are sitting in, you wonder whether winterbreak will change anything. You ask yourself if the little notes you gave your friends right before leaving were enough, if they were able to communicate the deep respect and gratefulness you feel for them, the delight you take in your conversations, the level on which you feel connected to them, even after such a short time span. You become aware of the uncertainty that awaits you at home. Not knowing how many of your “old” friends would turn out to be worthy of that title. When you see your family at the airport, you cry. After living four month in constant movement, your home is a welcomed constant. And time flies by, you meet with people, reflect on your past, try to organize your future, to clean up your life, you eat a lot and well, try to get some of that homework done. Ultimately, it is time for you to make all those choices again, to decide what part of your life at home should accompany you to that other home, that other life. And after a few more hours you sit in that van again, this time in the other direction, you watch a snowflake-ballet unfolding in the sky, clouds scattered across the pale grey. You notice the trees high up in the mountains that seem frozen, like delicate lace bordering the horizon. Then you are back. And it is as if you had never been gone. At that point, it is ridiculously easy to accommodate to one life or the other. Even if you still feel a clear distinction between here and there, both are a part of you, both are equally real (or unreal). And you are reunited with your other family.
What has changed is maybe you. Maybe you decided to change your lifestyle after you had time for reflection. Maybe you realized that time is scarce and that you should use it. It is winter and you can’t wait for spring to arrive. And as you sit and enjoy your last free day with a nice hot cup of tea with honey and milk, you realize that you look forward to whatever is to come.
It shocks you that your thoughts don’t linger more on the past. What you were decides on what you are. But in this place, there’s not much space for melancholy or nostalgia. All is new, all is future.
The UWC-Chronicles of Mostar 