After a Month

Beverly Diaz was a PAA Dance intern in Spain in the Summer of 2015. This is the third of three blog posts she wrote on her personal blog about here experience.  Be sure to check out the first and second posts.

Crinkled receipts of foreign type in the trash. Old metro tickets and museum brochures that missed the cut to become a memento join them. A neat line of souvenir shot glasses now adorn my dresser, next to a collection of beach rocks I brought back form Barcelona. These, along with the thousands of pictures I am still sorting through, are the only material reminders of the past five months. I’ve quickly found a new daily grind – the job, the commute, TV show, hangouts, all bringing me back to the norm of my home country. But the memories creep in to my day to day and I quickly push them away before they take me away. Friendly questions of, “What was it like abroad? I bet it was amazing! ” become a double-edged sword. I get to share my amazing experiences with you! But it also brings back the bliss – an unexplainable bliss…right now it doesn’t hurt to reminisce and I don’t ever want it to. I started missing Europe the second my plane took off from Florence – a little over ONE MONTH AGO (?!) – there’s no denying that. But now, I’m somewhere completely different, somewhere not even worth comparing to life abroad, because they are in two opposite categories. One does not trump the other. But Europe does taint my now, because I can’t pretend it didn’t change me, educate me, inspire me, give me even bigger dreams. With each experience came new thoughts, new etchings into my soul that I can’t erase – that I don’t want to erase and that no one can take away. My experience was individual though it was enjoyed with many. I may never be able to fully put into words what these past five months have meant to me, but I’lll never stop trying, for me.