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Studying abroad means forming relationships. Dozens of them, with classmates, teachers, host families, English students, families at church, and YES Abroad students.

There have been moments when I want to write a blog post about how perfect the YES Abroad group is here and how much I love all of them. There have been moments when I’d like to write about how you should never go on exchange in a group because it’s terrible.

After 9 months of pouring my heart into these relationships, it is excruciating to leave, as though they never happened.

None of these relationships I’ve formed are perfect, and when the cracks show it makes me want to run back to the way things were before I made them. People I talked to every day in December, I never talk to anymore. Relationships I’ve just started to form are being cut off in the bud. And even if I felt that all my relationships were perfect right now, I’d still be leaving them at the end of the year.

I have found that the only way to think about this leaving is to measure my exchange, and my relationships, in moments rather than length. Leaving limits the time I have with the people I’ve met here, but it doesn’t stop me from cherishing the moments of connection, inspiration, and contentment that I’ve had in Morocco.

Late night sleepover talks when I felt understood, and loved for it, lazy afternoons spent at cafes talking about my insecurities like I never have before, discussions during long car rides where I felt safe to express my opinions, and confident that people were listening. Being invited over to other’s houses, and basking in their generosity and hospitality. Feeling cared for, significant, beautiful, noticed, loved, listened to, known.

I wrote in August, before I left: “I’m sure that at the end of the experience I’ll have relationships that’ll always remain in my heart. It’ll be worth traveling across the world to gain them.”

However difficult, convoluted, and imperfect the relationships I’ve formed here have been, they have been worth it, a thousand times over. I have had incredible, heart stopping moments of happiness because of them.

I leave knowing that no matter how hard I hold on, the relationships I’ve formed here will shift. I can no longer call up a member of our YES Abroad group to vent about how terrible my day was. We can’t just meet up in half an hour at AMIDEAST.

But for the time I was given with everyone I met here, I am grateful. To everyone who reached out to me this year, who walked me through my hardest days, who was there when I needed to cry and when I needed to laugh, who showed me the beauty in Morocco when I couldn’t see it, thank you. Thank you a million times over.