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I only feel qualified to write this post after living through the month of May. I don’t mean to be negative by posting this so close to the end of my exchange, or imply that I’ve been terribly lonely for the entire year. The only times I’ve felt lonely have all fallen in the last four weeks. But I’ve learned and grown from this loneliness, so I wanted to share.

Loneliness on exchange sneaks up at the most unexpected times. It rarely hits right when you step off of the plane. Some people are loneliest in September. Some in November, some in January. I was loneliest in May.

When I realized that I was lonely, I was frustrated. Why May? I was supposed to be over the hard parts in May, I was supposed to be floating through happy, busy days. I was supposed to have learned the lessons that I was going to learn this year, and use May to buy presents and drink fruit juice. But such a idyllic month was not to be.

Why was I lonely? I’ve come up with several reasons- my closest friend left Morocco, I wasn’t in school, my daily routine was changing as I prepared to go back to the US, and I was thinking a lot more about home because I was getting ready to go back. No one told me that going home would be this hard before I’d even left Morocco! I don’t think everyone feels this way in the last weeks of their exchange, but I also I also don’t think I’m the only one. I do think that the vast majority of exchange students feel lonely at some point during the year.

Here are the three biggest realities I discovered about loneliness:

  1. You can feel lonely even when you’re surrounded by friends. I have many friends here, I have a community of exchange students, of church families, and of my host family. I skype home once a week. I spend time with people who care about me almost every day. But I can still feel lonely, because none of my relationships are perfect. When I idealize my relationships, and start to believe that we’re perfectly in tune and connected, reality tends to show me otherwise. So I feel isolated and lonely.
  2. You can’t stop the loneliness, but you can respond to it. Hanging out with more people doesn’t solve the problem. Finding new friends doesn’t fix it. I found that identifying the feeling of loneliness was necessary, but then I had to shift my focus outwards, towards other people. Instead of thinking about how lonely I felt, I could think about how my friends might be feeling, and how I could engage and love them.
  3. Loneliness can be a huge reminder that God is the source of my sufficiency. Friendships don’t cut it in that area. When I focus too much on my friendships and not enough on my relationship with God, I tend to get lonely, because I’m out of balance. Even if I don’t have any friends, God is enough. If I’m not living like that’s true, God reminds me!

If you’re lonely and on exchange, I know it’s hard. Force yourself to keep going through the motions of each day, to get outside of the house and explore, alone or with others. Get off of Facebook, where you can idealize other people’s relationships and feel even lonelier. Talk to people face to face instead. The loneliness is temporary, and it’ll leave faster if you find things you love in your host country. Above all, give yourself time, communicate about how you’re feeling, and don’t feel guilty about feeling lonely. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad exchange student!