By Katie Morrison

I spent a year abroad.

But it wasn’t even a full year. It wasn’t even a full nine months. But for some reason, saying, “I spent 8 months and 27 days abroad,” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

However you phrase it, the point is the same: I spent a significant period of time abroad, and that changed things. I gave up a year of comfort and stability, of friends and teammates, of consistency and familial support, to go to a place where I didn’t even know the language. Yes, I was also signing up for months worth of travel and cultural experience but I’m a creature of habit. New things don’t come very easy to me.

One of the hardest moments came around the holidays, supporting the conventional idea that it’s the worst time to be alone. Exhausted after a day of exploring, and slightly bitter after paying a fortune for a small bag of candy, I called my family at home, and immediately after seeing my sister’s face, choked up with tears. Ironically, during our video chat even more family members walked through the door, further plunging me into heartache.

After hanging up, I sat wallowing in a dark room in the most dramatic fashion. I wasn’t thinking of the amazing city outside my door or the new friends who were cooking pasta for me in the kitchen. I wasn’t thinking about the things I had. Instead I was consumed with the things I didn’t have.

Being away had an enormous impact on me, not only on how I view things presently, but how I will act in the future. I find myself hoping desperately that my first job post-college will be near my family. I hope that I can make the promised cross-country trip to visit the friends I’ve made while here in Italy. I hope to keep exercising—running on my own—even if it is the actual bane of my existence.

My time abroad has also sharpened my awareness of myself, of my opinions and boundaries. There are things that, growing up in a conservative, yet open-minded Adventist home, I was firmly against: swearing, eating out on Sabbath, drinking, smoking, and the list goes on. I was used to choosing friends who shared similar opinions, thereby avoiding conflict and staying comfortable.

Life in Italy introduced me to amazing people with whom I developed friendships before learning their stances on any of those subjects. We bonded and grew together and created memories that will endear them to me for life. But after these friendships were formed, I often found myself challenged. Never was I peer pressured, but I suddenly found myself with brand new opportunities and choices to make. Shopping and lunch at a sushi bar were common Saturday plans, and on weekend evenings the bathrooms would be overrun with girls getting fancy for a night on the town. I am not naïve enough to think none of my friends back home did these things, but unlike back home where no one ever did these things in front of me, in Italy I was brought into the circle. Suddenly I had the opportunity. Suddenly I had a choice.

I had been so coddled and sheltered in my self-inflicted bubble that I never really needed to make decisions for myself. Now faced with these kinds of choices, I questioned my motivations. I questioned the guidelines I had given myself, and even asked trusted friends and family back home about their personal convictions. I spent much of the year deciding what was ultimately best for me and what I personally felt God was okay with me doing. Even though that might have meant I spent more Saturday nights alone in my room than in the company of friends, it did give me clarity. I was able to sharpen the beliefs I already had and really make them my own. I created my own boundaries instead of relying on those I had been given from birth.

I return to America with a greater appreciation for weekend trips and spontaneous midnight snack runs, for foreign languages and contrasting perspectives, for new friends and new loves (I’m talking about Switzerland—I’m still single, Mom and Dad!). I return to America with a greater sense of self, desperately hoping it helps in my final year of college and gives me the confidence to do what I must. I return to America a little kinder, a little smarter, and a little poorer.

But even with all the gifts my year abroad has given me, I can’t wait to return to things awaiting me back home.

Some friends and I spent my final week in Sicily for a few last adventures. We climbed volcanoes, ate amazing pasta and cannoli, relaxed by the seaside, and embraced friends for perhaps the last time. Sporadically, one of us would be overcome with homesickness and desperately cry, “Only five more days!” or “Only two more days!” Even though I had spent the better part of winter feeling more than ready to go home, I felt dread hearing the countdown. Somehow, seemingly overnight, this foreign place had become home. I would return to Italy in a heartbeat. Yes, I love my family too much to live here for longer than a year or so, but this country will hold a piece of my heart forever. The way it changed me, the friendships I cherished, the memories I made, will never fade. And if they should somehow, I have lots of amazing photos to remind me.

–Katie Morrison completed a year of study in Florence, Italy. She was the RMC communication intern in 2015.