THINQon : A new country, a rebirth

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Michael PATRON

A new country, a rebirth

Latest Post: March 2009

4 followers

I was born in 1973. Took my first breath at that time effectively.

16 years later, I was standing in my bedroom alone, as usual. My parents had divorced 5 years earlier, I had a conflictual relationship with my younger sister, not much friends, no girlfriend. Quite alone.

In fact, I was really shy and could not look at a girl's eyes without flushing, so you can imagine that talking to her was just impossible. It hurted me so much as I really had love to spread but not any courage to let it out. I was a fully romantic frustrated nerd.

I didn't feel well with my physical, my voice, the way I acted. I really believed I was born in the wrong place. Then to escape from this world, I used to watch a lot of american television shows and movies, and dreamed about this country where everything seemed possible.

As I was 16 yo, I saw in my high school a poster with the american flag : a commercial for a one year trip oversea experience as an exchange student. At that time, I knew something great could finally happen in my life. I had to convince my parents to let me go (and incidentaly to pay for this trip), to pass several psychological and knowledge tests, and then a few months later I was in the flight Paris-Chicago, with a huge smile on my face and my heart beating fast. Not only because of the plane, I felt like a bird which could finally fly after escaping its small cage. Not that I didn't love my family at that time, but I needed to find myself.

The year I have spent as an exchange student in Arnold, Missouri, was the best of my life : I made many friends, got selfconfident, succeeded in sport, had a few girlfriends, enjoyed my first sex experiences, and started to consider that life was a beautiful gift. Not that I had no bad times there, but I finally knew how to overpass them and to stay optimist whatever happened. This place, these moments, these people I met, I will always remember them. This experience is my rebirth : 16 years after coming into that world, I finally knew how to deal with it and to enjoy it.

Why this experience had changed my life so intensively ? Would I have felt these changes if I went in another country or if I had lived this experience several years sooner or later ? It is the fact that I was plunged into a so different cultural environnement, with no one knowing my language ?

This post is referenced by the following other contributors:

Solveig Wright	in "Living in a foreign city"	(Travel)
Emily Andrews	in "Not sure if a girl is interested"	(The Living Room)
Carl Smith	in "What are the benefits of studying a term abroad?"	(Office)
Chris Utterman	in "What to do with three months "off""	(The Living Room)

Penelope Rose sent kudos and tagged this post as Insightful.

Reply to:

Virginia Bird

March 2009

20 followers

Hi Michael,

I think there is something very important in living in a different continent than one's family and friends. I'm not sure why but it is very liberating. Everyone I talk to I suggest going to study abroad, either through a year of being an interchange student, or better yet, advanced studies abroad (my case), where I think for non US citizens, it is best to go to the US as even if the professors are not the smartest, the university system is by far the best for students (and there are always some very good professors).

Perhaps it's the new culture, or the completely different kind of people. Perhaps its not being able to read so quickly the people around you. I don't think it's the language though. In any case it is a great and important experience to have.

You personal story I found very moving.

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Emily Andrews

March 2009

31 followers

Thanks for the nice story.
It's funny, I too experience the world as a progression of different experiences, which often come at precisely the right moment: but I am not sure that they are not all there at the same time, and it's me who is only able to see first some, then the others.

Just to tell a slightly different story: I remember once when I lived in a beautiful, somewhat rural place, and my walk to town took me through paths overgrown with flowers. One morning I was extremely upset about something and had to walk this beautiful path in my rage and disappointment. It occurred to me then that it is really false of us to imagine that flowers are expressions of whimsy or of joy, that they exist at all in our human range of emotions. They are mute -- they are simply a blossoming power -- they are expressing life, the inexhaustible, the constant force of living pushing through all things, like waves of the sea, "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower..."

Somehow at the time it was very liberating to understand this. It's not exactly that the world, which is to say the natural world, reflects your emotions back to you, neither does it taunt you with emotions you can't access: it simply immerses you in the force of life, restores to you the feeling of your body moving, your breath, the wind moving democratically through your hair regardless of your inner state. When I am open to this, just to the reminder of what it is to be alive (not sentimentally: not "that life is wonderful," nor that "life is tragic," but simply that life exists, in full force, all around me), it restores me.

This is not exactly the same experience you describe of immersing yourself in an environment really different from your own (which thus allows you to really relax into being fully alive), but perhaps it is close; in any case, this is how it felt for me.

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Jessica Rosen, Graduate student in Art History.

March 2009

9 followers

Hi Michael,

A Friend of mine's family actually hosted an exchange student, and they stayed close for many years later. Do you keep up with your host family, even though it's been awhile?

Like you say Virginia, there is something magical about living in a different continent than your own. Have you seen Baz Luhrmann's Australia? Perhaps something like what happens to Nicole Kidman there. (A nice quote of hers here .)

I'm not sure how much the 2 cases are similar Emily, but there is one important similarity which you note, which is to be in an environment different from your own. Adapting to it allows you to recreate yourself in way which is very hard when you are with your old friends around you. A rebirth as you called it. While in your own country the metamorphesis is very hard and slow with many people pushing you to return to your old state. But abroad, you have to change, and no one knows how you were so they don't push you to stay there, and that gives you enormous freedom.

I do think the age is an important factor. I'm not sure 11-15 are very good as those are difficult years, and different ages would have different effects.

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