On the morning of 22 March 2016, I was waking up to my alarm going off. My bags were packed, my clothes laid out. In an hour or so, my friend and I would be on our way to the airport to catch our flight to Italy. We were so excited, mostly about the pizza and the wine. When my alarm went off, I got up and started to dress, but then my friend showed me the major news headline of that morning: bombings in Brussels, Belgium. Multiple casualties. Chaos. Terror. I felt a heavy brick start to settle in the pit of my stomach. We certainly picked a good day for traveling, didn't we? I won't lie, all the way to the airport, I was nervous. Standing line for check-in, I was nervous. What if something else happened that morning, and what if I was involved? Were we going to make it to Italy safely? We would't know until we got there. (We made it safe and had a great trip, don't worry.)
What happened on 22 March 2016 is a very terrifying reality of the world we live in today. It is an intimidating reality for students, like myself, who choose to study abroad. Particularly in Europe, an area of the world so close together, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the next attack might happen. And it is very scary. The apprehension I felt in the airport as we made our way to Italy is an unsettling feeling that many other study abroad kids feel as they travel and explore the world. I know people who left Brussels one day before the attacks occurred. I cannot even imagine what they felt as they woke up to those news headlines.
Even though I felt all of this fear and apprehension building up inside of me, I also felt something else. I felt the need to keep doing what I was doing: traveling. I wasn't going to cancel my trips and hide out in my dorm room, hoping I don't get killed. I wasn't going to stop living my life because of a terrible thing that might happen to me. Yes, unfortunately, the threat of terror, especially nowadays, is very real in Europe and the rest of the world. We don't live in a safe and happy place. These atrocities happen, and innocent and good people get hurt in the process.
I decided to study abroad so that I could get out of the bubble I was living in and see more of the world. I did it to enhance my sense of adventure and create memories that I'd tell my children about. I also made this decision knowing that it came with risks, and that some of those risks are vastly out of my control. Wherever I go during my travels, I can't predict exactly what's going to happen to me. It's a reality that I've accepted.
In the face of terror, as a study abroad student, it is more important than ever for me to carry on with normal life. Daily upset, skirting around what we would normally do, this is exactly the preferred outcome of atrocities like the ones in Brussels, Paris and Ankara. The expectation of those events is that we alter our daily way of life and carry on in fear of what may happen to us. But we cannot allow that to be. In spite of the tragedies that are carried out all over the world, we have to keep living our lives as we normally would. Naturally, precautions should be taken to ensure as much safety as possible. But we're never 100 per cent in control.
I came abroad to explore the world and gain invaluable life experiences, and that's what I plan on continuing to do. The world is a scary place, but what's even scarier is that we might let it have us hiding in a box somewhere. If you're a fellow student abroad, continue on with your travels. Explore. Discover. Experience. It's what you came here to do, and don't let the threat of what may be take that away from you.
