Returning to campus after being abroad for a year feels like time has rewound, stopped, and sped forward all at the same time; as if it’s been both a second and a lifetime since I’ve left. At first glance, everything back on campus seems exactly the way I left it, like nothing really has changed. But on the other hand, I feel like I am seeing everything with new eyes--and nothing looks the same.

I definitely feel older and wiser, and as I look around I feel like I am reflecting on a past life with some worldly perspective I seemed to have picked up through my travels. It’s almost like I am balancing two sides of myself. There's one who is eager to reconnect with the sophomore version of myself, the girl I left here on campus before my junior year abroad. And then there's the one who’s trying to comprehend that I am now a senior with only one year left of college--all the while still daydreaming of my life in Edinburgh, Scotland. I certainly feel in a bit of a fog, and it feels like I am a sophomore and a senior all at the same time.

I remember that, before I left for my year abroad, I used to wonder what my college campus would look like after I returned. I knew everything would physically look the same, but I wondered if I would see things differently after traveling the world.

Now that I have returned, I would say it’s not that my vision has necessarily changed, but that I have gained a whole new set of eyes. I see things with a new filter so that everything I do and everything I see is influenced by my experiences abroad. My thoughts aren’t only concentrated in the now, but they drift and float back to my life abroad so that my abroad memories are always in my eyes, every time I blink.

The truth is, going abroad changes you. Confronting the reality that I am no longer the same person that I was when I left can sometimes be a little strange, but it’s also refreshing. I don’t necessarily want to be the same person I was two years ago. I’m ready to make this year different, to approach things differently, and to enjoy things I might have overlooked before.

My life abroad will always be so near and dear to me. It forced me out of my comfort zone so much so that I never want to go back to how it was before, now that every new experience surprises me and pushes me in ways I could never have expected.

It’s certainly not an easy transition being back after so long, and that’s something I didn’t quite anticipate when I decided to go abroad. I considered the challenge of leaving my home, family and friends for a year and living in a foreign country by myself, but I never thought about how hard it would be to return to school.

I think it is important to recognize that returning from any abroad experience, whether a semester or a year, will always require some kind of adjustment or transition from the person you were when you left to the person you are now--the person with all the added experiences and memories. But this can be also exciting, because you get to start again while carrying the experiences of your exchange with you everywhere.

It may take a few more days, or even weeks for me to process all that has happened this past year. Maybe I will always be slightly shocked by it all. But either way it has prepared me for making the most of every situation: whether it is new experience, a familiar one, or something completely unknown.