A brief history of post-Erasmus

Suddenly, I woke up. No more going downstairs to the Common Room for a quick table football session with Pol and Will, where Joel would join in accompanied by his speaker and a Stella six-pack; no more late dining sessions in Ferran and Joan’s kitchen, where we would all hear stories about the mythological monster René and we would observe the similarity between Spanish and Portuguese words and everyone would laugh about the Portuguese “shhh” sounds; no more coffee breaks with Christine, where we would both share our super big dramas (in all fairness, I was the big drama queen) and she would tell me how much she was dying (actually, I might not be the big drama queen after all); no more random moments with Steph; no more Bruis, Laura and Léa; no more Portuguese dinners in the C1401 kitchen with frequent recipe improvisations; no more nice and sometimes crazy Romanian flatmates; no more sightseeing tours through the gorgeous city of London; no more gatherings with my new flatmates where we would play Kevin’s weird German card game; no more lab meetings with cake and cookies in the end or brainstorming meetings with Dana and Sylvain; no more philosophical and social behaviour analysis talks with Costanza; no more going to my cousin’s; no more Cécile, Patri, Adrian, Thomas and all the amazing people I’ve met that I can’t even make them all fit in this list. No. Out of the blue, the dream ended. I feel like all the memories are trapped in my brain and I want to get out the door and go get them back, but I’m sucked into the black hole that is the unidirectionality of time. Time, what a funny concept… There were moments I spent during my Erasmus wishing time would go faster so I could go back to my brother, my parents, the rest of my family and my friends. But, even though I’m glad I’m back, why did time move so quickly? Why couldn’t I enjoy all that a bit longer? And why does time move so slowly now?

Yes, I was never good at embracing change. Or I wasn’t. Because Erasmus changed me, even if it was just a little. All that period abroad was nothing if a stream of changes, one after the other. No day was the same. And despite having those little moments I miss on a regular basis, those moments, those people generated other novel experiences every day.

So, I guess I’ve learned a lesson. Routine and impulsiveness can crosslink into a mesh of simultaneous thrill and excitement. Back home, I have recovered my routine. I shall complete this recovery with a quest for the “impulsiveness” I found it’s possible to have alongside.So, yeah, time only moves forward. The old me would be sad about it; the new me has accepted it; the real me knows that the concept of having different “selves” throughout time is basically a social construct and a product of one’s imagination and that a person is basically always the same, although updates occur regularly when that person learns (I mean, after your laptop reboots to install the newest set of updates, Windows 10 is still Windows 10 right? The only difference is: it works a little bit differently, hopefully better). However, theories aside, it’s true that the past is only useful to learn from it and to make you smile while you cherish the memories, but one shall never be stuck to it. Dwelling on the past for too long only hinders your ability to progress and evolve in the present and in the future. So, do I mean by this that I will move on and detach myself from that beautiful journey that Erasmus was? Not. A. Chance. I will make new memories from the old ones. Routine and impulsiveness, remember? Certainty and uncertainty intertwined. That’s why, in a few hours, some of us from the “Pal Café” gang will get Spanish! Barcelona and Valencia, daddy is coming!