America: a love story
Stranger in a strange land
Noel Runyan
Issue date: 12/3/08 Section: Lifestyles
All things end, and it is one of the tragedies of the human experience that we alone are capable of foreseeing our own inevitable end. I have my own minor tragedy to deal with now and well before the customary age of a mid-life crisis.
This is my final article written from abroad. Last things are poignant, and even the last, unread dispatch of an unknown undergraduate holds some sentimental value for the author. So I feel like I have a duty to say something profound, to present a summa of lessons learned. But before I even sat down to write this, I was saddled with fear. I knew that whatever observations I could offer would only approach one of two banalities. So I have exchanged sermonizing for self-loathing.
Rather than spend the remainder of my precious space here telling you to study abroad and change your life, widen your horizons, embrace other cultures, etc. etc., I would like to leave the rest of my clichés unspoken and tell you something personal. Why not? We'll never meet again - the timing couldn't be better. For the first time in my adult life, I really love my country. ??
And now I've exposed myself, writing my own j'accuse. I am guilty of nothing less than learning how to love my country again, with both heart and mind. Some time ago, I was warned that I would eventually "grow up." I swore I would be ready for it, ready and waiting and determined not to let it happen, because all the pain and the trouble in the world seemed to be caused by people who had grown up, and if that's what it would do to me, I didn't want any part of it. But somewhere along the way, my five year-old mentality got left behind in kindergarten, sitting on the floor eating graham crackers and I found myself riding the wrong way on a bus into suburban Budapest. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child and I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways and realized that growing up was only a matter of time. Time and consciousness. When I was a child, my world was narrow and it was easy to love everything and everyone in it. ? When I was a man, I came to a wider world and a deeper love. I have invested in my country the faith and hope of a child, but I love it as a man. ??
This is my final article written from abroad. Last things are poignant, and even the last, unread dispatch of an unknown undergraduate holds some sentimental value for the author. So I feel like I have a duty to say something profound, to present a summa of lessons learned. But before I even sat down to write this, I was saddled with fear. I knew that whatever observations I could offer would only approach one of two banalities. So I have exchanged sermonizing for self-loathing.
Rather than spend the remainder of my precious space here telling you to study abroad and change your life, widen your horizons, embrace other cultures, etc. etc., I would like to leave the rest of my clichés unspoken and tell you something personal. Why not? We'll never meet again - the timing couldn't be better. For the first time in my adult life, I really love my country. ??
And now I've exposed myself, writing my own j'accuse. I am guilty of nothing less than learning how to love my country again, with both heart and mind. Some time ago, I was warned that I would eventually "grow up." I swore I would be ready for it, ready and waiting and determined not to let it happen, because all the pain and the trouble in the world seemed to be caused by people who had grown up, and if that's what it would do to me, I didn't want any part of it. But somewhere along the way, my five year-old mentality got left behind in kindergarten, sitting on the floor eating graham crackers and I found myself riding the wrong way on a bus into suburban Budapest. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child and I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways and realized that growing up was only a matter of time. Time and consciousness. When I was a child, my world was narrow and it was easy to love everything and everyone in it. ? When I was a man, I came to a wider world and a deeper love. I have invested in my country the faith and hope of a child, but I love it as a man. ??
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