Tags
Adjustment, Comfort, Coming Home, Culture, Discomfort, Exchange, Exchange student, Growth, Life, Safety, Scared, Study Abroad, Travel, Uncomfortable
In October, I wrote a post on living a full life, one where I step outside of my own comfort and focus on others, to confront the differences that disturbed me rather than race to the end of my year.
Discomfort has stayed with me for the entire year. There has not been a single day when I feel completely comfortable here, although there have been many where my focus is on comfort. Those days about what I want to do, what will make me feel happiest, what will require the least confrontation. I’m ashamed to admit it. There have been other days when I sucked it up and embarked on an adventure, even though I really didn’t want to. Teaching my first English class to adults, going to that first violin lesson, apologizing to a person I’d hurt. Sometimes it was even as simple as sitting in the salon at night instead of in my room. Even that could become a battle. It’s so easy to want to be comfortable.
I’m thrown back to this same idea on comfort as I get ready to leave. Again, I’m forced to confront discomfort, as I say goodbye to people I love and go back to a country I once knew very well, but now won’t quite fit with anymore. The cleanliness, the affluence, the organization, the timeliness, the mechanization of America will be uncomfortable. My relationship with my family and friends will be uncomfortable.
I hate this discomfort. But I still believe that it makes me grow. This year, the most valuable experiences have been the ones that made me feel the most uncomfortable. So I know coming home will be valuable, even if I don’t always look forward to it.
I really want to stay uncomfortable in the US. I don’t want to make peace with the parts of America that disturb me. I don’t want to pretend to be the same person that I was before I left just to avoid feeling uncomfortable. I want to find new, challenging experiences that keep making me uncomfortable.
I recently read an opinion piece in the New York times that talked about the overwhelming preoccupation of colleges with the comfort of students, and how students are “hiding from scary ideas.” Debates over controversial issues are being avoided at colleges around the country for the fear that they would affect the mental safety of students.
Why are we so worried about feeling safe? Learning that reaches our heart can only come when we feel unsafe, uncomfortable; when we step out of what we think and feel and hear another perspective. I don’t want to be safe, I don’t want to be comfortable.
Mots Du Maroc 
Will it make you feel more comfortable if I don’t clean the house before you come?
But seriously, I admire and encourage your desire to stay uncomfortable. I think it’s going to be inevitable over the next few months, and it does lead to growth. At the same time, I hope this discomfort also leads to at least a small moment sometime soon where you feel really at home, really understood, and really happy. I have a feeling it’s not going to be too much longer now.