Alia Hansen

The Diary of an Ex-International Student.

Oct 20. 2021. Recalling what life was like before my flight home is impossible. What it was, what it wasn’t, what it was like. I’m home now, I know I am, I see it everywhere. Every day I am reminded by the little things that I am home now. But it’s hard to process that I am, finally, after years of drifting. Wandering. Being on my feet constantly, adjusting to new environments, adjusting overall. Changing, changing, and more changing for the past 16 years of my life. It is October now, I’m in a new school just as I knew I would be. New school, new country, new friends, new me. But who was I before? Who was I for those previous five years I was in Thailand? Those two years I was in New York City, two different times? Those two I was in upstate New York? Those five years in Kenya, two years in Lebanon? What changed, and how did I get here? Where am I? Who am I? Who was I? All questions I find impossible to answer. It's almost as if I’m a shapeshifter, drifting dream through dream. For so long, all of my childhood; I just wanted to go home. Be home. Live in a place for long enough to recognize my surroundings, recognize myself, the people around me. And now, finally, after all these years I have that opportunity. And yet, around the people I love, the country I would hold so dearly to my heart and romanticize every single day I spent abroad, something is still missing. I am still missing. This is my dream, I am living out everything I ever wished for throughout my time away from my home country, and now I am finally here. In the present.