Going back to being Bex.

In less than 4 weeks time I get to go back to being Bex.  I get to go back to being the "normal" me, and not the "normal" that I've become over the last 10 months.  Over the course of this year I'm pretty sure I've been a different person, and not one I particularly like I must admit.

They say that you'll come back from the year abroad a different person, but that is because you're meant to be more confident and outgoing, better travelled and more experienced but I think something quite the opposite has happened to me.  Over the last two years at uni, and to an extent some of my time in 6th form, I have managed to shed the shy person I used to be, I am a lot more confident, will get stuck in and involved with anything and everything and really enjoy meeting new people.  Somehow over the course of my year abroad that person has gone into hiding.  I get wound up over little things, complain about things that would never usually bother me and get upset totally needlessly.  I've never been an unsociable person but I've certainly spent a lot more time on my own than I ever have done before, and I'm not even entirely sure why that is.

During the first semester I convinced myself that it was because I was in a French speaking country and that it was my weaker language and so I was bound to feel uneasy, but I realise now that was utter rubbish.  I was surrounded by Erasmus students that I didn't have to speak French to  if I didn't feel able to, so why couldn't I make myself do that?  Here I am coming to the end of semester two, in a country where I am a lot more capable of speaking the language and yet has there been any change?  No, it's been just as hard as the first time round.

This is one of the overriding reasons why I am looking forward to going home, I come home and start a new job for the summer, I go back to meeting new people and doing new things.  Then I go back to Lancaster where I am involved with societies and have a job which constantly has me doing new things and meeting new people, just the way I like it.

Why this year hasn't given me that I just can't explain.  I'm not saying the experience hasn't given me other things, and I'm sure I'll see these in hindsight, I've been to some great places and seen lots, I'm certainly a better travelled person, and have learnt things, but other than that?

Anyone that has met me for the first time this year will have almost certainly have met a different person, it's not a bad thing, but she's certainly not the person I know and won't have any problem saying goodbye to her at Malaga airport in just under 4 weeks...