I’m trying not to freak out, but being sad is something I can’t hide. Less than a month and this journey is over, my EVS will end in few weeks and I feel I still didn’t do half of the things I would like to and should. Since the day I arrived I have learned so much and experienced a lot, but now that I’m trying to write down it’s impossible, it’s difficult to write down a chapter of your life that looks like a maze. EVS is the type of maze that you enter but doesn’t have an ending and you don’t know what to expect once you’re in.
Before coming here I had an idea what the project I’ll be involved in and what to expect, or at least I thought I knew what to expect. I kicked off this journey with belief of this being just a project to get an experience from, a time for myself to read and learn, and a space to reflect on everything. The entrance was appealing and full of expectations. First week was perfection, getting to know my flatmates and starting to get familiarized with people, work and surroundings.
Day after day, things got different, I realized I was in a mindset of this being a vacation, a runaway from my stressful lifestyle and work. It is not. EVS is a part of the lifetime with different setup and surroundings, which was good because it made me feel comfortable and not away from my usual comfort zone. Some incidents and events made me realize things I already went through but never really thought of, learning points I have been ignoring or rejected to accept. As it’s coming to an end, my EVS was not just the change of a location, it was getting out of the mindset I was trapping myself in before to look at things differently, to look at the world differently. Of course traveling around was the most beautiful thing, especially having these trips with beautiful people who have spiced this experience and made it what it is, but maybe the idea of EVS is not to experience living abroad or experiencing a different culture, it’s to get out of your own to see your life in a different standpoint, to walk forward and then look back and analyse.
It’s heart aching for me to know It’s about to end, and I am sad it was fast and short, I want more, but on the other hand I’m also eager to go back to my reality and accept the things I can’t change and play around the things I can, I can’t wait to go think of my own project, develop it and implement it. I am excited to know what changed in me through out the way, and the only way to know is just to move on and deal with life and holding on to the things I’ve already learnt.
25 days to the last page in Portugal, Margem Sul, but of course not the end of EVS, it will go on for the rest of my days
