Coming Home

Hey everyone. Welcome back. How’ve you been?

Though my exchange ended over a year ago, I didn’t exactly wrap up the YES Abroad Bulgaria chapter on here. I intended to! I had grand plans to document the anticipation, the departure, the journey home, and the aftermath here for you all in real time. Clearly, that didn’t happen. The truth is I didn’t so much sprint to the finish line of exchange as crash over it, violently. Thanks to factors from all aspects of my life, I was mentally exhausted and full of conflicting emotions that made the thought of publicly digesting my experience as written word terrifying. To top it all off, I got a cough about four days before leaving that quickly developed into a pretty horrendous cold. By the time I made it to the airport in Oregon, it took all of my willpower to not collapse into my parents’ arms and make them carry me all the way back to my bed so I could sleep for the next year. I managed to hold it together a bit better than that, but I did sleep 13 hours my first night home.

At our goodbye party at Makana’s house

There’s no sugarcoating it: My final months of exchange were my hardest. It would have been easy to run home and never look back. Thankfully, my Bulgarian community was too full of kind hearts and genuine love for that to happen. My last days in Sofia were full of beautiful moments, even if I was a bit of a mess for them. There were final meals with friends at favorite restaurants and last walks around favorite neighborhoods and goodbye parties full of people I love. I even spent the day before departure out in my beloved Bulgarian countryside on a tour with Lily and her host mother. All of these were important reminders of what I had gained over the past 10 1/2 months. I felt lifted up by the strength of my Bulgarian friends and family and reconnected with my initial curiosity about this unknown corner of the universe. I was ready to leave when the time came, but I left with gratitude.

On July 11, 2018, after many hours of travel and a day of re-entry orientation in D.C., I was back in Oregon. My friends and family met me at the airport with group hugs, adorable welcome home signs, and a sense of belonging I hadn’t known in months. Then I got to see my dog! And my house! And my bed! (That one was particularly exciting). Each reunion felt strange yet familiar, a reintroduction to a self and life I had begun to forget.

I only had six weeks in Oregon that summer before flying to D.C. for school. Each one felt like a waking dream. Some mornings I would wake up with the steely grit I had developed to face the tougher days in Bulgaria settled deep in my stomach. Not until I saw my mom or dad making breakfast or coming back from a run would it begin to dissolve. Not until then could I trust it was all real. Bulgaria followed me, as it does to this day. I found myself sharing stories and feeling the urge to speak Bulgarian to people who definitely do not understand Bulgarian. Over time, I’ve started looking forward to those moments and appreciating all I learned on exchange. These days anything remotely Balkan-related sends me into a fit of pure excitement (just ask anyone who’s seen me overhear someone speaking a Slavic language). For a long time though, I had to reject it. Part of my readjusting to America was distancing myself from Bulgaria. I don’t need or want to do that anymore, but it was crucial then. Future exchange alums, take care of yourselves. It’s a hard thing. Do what you need to.

The best hug I’ve ever received, from the best people.

You may find it a bit odd for me to be sharing all this now, but I have a good reason: Last week, just over a year after leaving, I returned to Bulgaria with my parents in tow.

Wild, right?

We were there for about a week and stayed mostly in Sofia, with a day trip to the Plovdiv region and an overnight on Rila Mountain. Of course, the primary focus wasn’t really sightseeing. It was introducing my parents to the Bulgarian chapter of my life. They tasted the real versions of traditional foods I had attempted to make at home (with varying success). They met and got to know the people who had cared for me in their stead. They heard Bulgarian spoken by natives in its native context! By the time we left, they both said they had a much greater understanding of the country and what I had experienced there.

Unexpectedly, while they were learning about Bulgaria, I was learning about myself and how my year there changed me. At every turn, I saw them react with curiosity and confusion to things I had forgotten were different. I felt at home in Sofia as soon as we arrived. More at home than I had expected to. I remembered every street corner and how to get around on public transport. My language skills came rushing back, as did my hard-won comfort with Bulgarian culture. It didn’t really feel like I was on vacation. It was just my life. My parents, on the other hand, were in a totally new country in a part of the world they had never before explored. They had questions (so many questions) that they asked Bulgarians with far more ease than I had had as an exchange student. They were tourists, after all. Ignorance was expected and assimilation was not. At times I was shocked by their comfort with their “Americanness,” a quality I worked so hard to conceal during my daily life in Bulgaria. I was surprised to find some freedom in it. When I lived in Sofia, I couldn’t comment on every cultural difference or I ran the risk of offending my host community. My parents’ inhibition on that front proved educational, as some Bulgarians talked to them with an openness I had never seen. I’m not sure why.

Host family, natural family, and I! And a random kid from Washington state who photobombed us.

I’m glad I went back. There were moments when I remembered what had been challenging about my year and felt the echoes of those feelings flood my body, but they were few and far between. Mostly, I rejoiced in reconnecting with friends and family, and with the version of Margaret that exists only in the Balkans. The one that can guffaw at the taxi driver’s cynical humor and ask rhetorical questions in that profoundly incredulous way that only a Bulgarian can pull off. The one that knows how to handle herself when things inevitably go awry with no rhyme or reason. When Bulgarians accept as fact things Americans struggle to process. The one that now finds certain American habits and perspectives as absurd as Bulgarians do. That still knows every song on the Sofia radio stations. It’s a part of me that my American friends and family won’t ever really know, no matter how many stories I tell. But she was resurrected for those eight days. And best of all, the most important people in my life got to meet her.

Mom and I at the Acropolis!

Initially I wasn’t sure we had given ourselves enough time in Bulgaria, but a week back proved more than enough. And besides, my family would never let plane tickets from Oregon to Eastern Europe go to waste! Since leaving Sofia last Wednesday, we’ve spent five lovely days in Athens, Greece and have nearly two more weeks in this beautiful country, which we’re splitting between Santorini and Crete. After being head trip-planner, translator, and human restaurant guide in Bulgaria, it’s been wonderful to actually be on vacation (my condolences to my mother, who has donned 2/3 of those hats for this portion of our travels). Look out for a far less introspective and much more touristy post on our adventures coming soon. To bring back an old tradition: Until next time, αντιο σας!