Right now, I’m sitting on the bare floor of the room I borrowed for the past four months surrounded by clothes, pictures, books, and memories of our time together that I am attempting to cram into two suitcases and a backpack.
As I walk through the German streets these last few nights, I will inhale clouds of melancholy, pungent with the aromas of nostalgia and heartache that a place I’ve come to love so dearly is in its final hours.
Germany, I dove into you head first, but not before my heart, which swooned at the sights before me: green and plush with potential abounding. I learned your native tongue and soon enough was kissing the air with sentences and conversations as though I were speaking only to you. I hiked through your mountains, lied in your valleys, indulged in your presence as though I finally entered the paradise lost ages ago.
I want to write you a love song, but I feel as though it’s too soon, as for now all I can manage to say is ‘thank you.’
Thank you for allowing me the privilege of experiencing the German life and culture with which I find myself endlessly fascinated. For gifting me with some of the most wonderful human beings I’ve ever come to know. For filling my heart all the times it felt empty and broken. Thank you for helping me learn to trust myself, proving to myself I am stronger and more confident than I give myself credit. Thank you for all the times you were my home when I felt as though I had none.
I was once told never to go to another country to find myself, that I already know myself enough to see life through another lens, and I have. Germany, you filled me with the idea of possibility and the beauty of wonder and the utmost optimism for the path of this world in which we live.
So as I finish packing my bags and ultimately depart, just know that my absence is only for the time being and that, with a little hard work and a heaping load of passion, I will one day return to satiate my enduring wanderlust. Aufwiedersehen, mein Schatz - goodbye, my treasure.
America, prepare yourself.
