The unfamiliar life back in Denmark

Life back home in Denmark is now almost as strange and unfamiliar to me as life in Dhaka was. Life in Denmark used to be busy…studying, doing AIESEC work, living my life in Aarhus –on my own… meeting up with friends and dreaming of what would come when I finally would finish my studies.

I have studied for 20 years!!! But that has come to an end... Now I am looking for a job –a real job, the job where I will contribute to ensuring the people around the world a better life, a life with opportunities, freedom and hope…. But it is so much more difficult than I thought it would be… it is actually good, as it is difficult because so many people want to contribute to this, so many people want the same kind of job as I do…

Besides that, life in Denmark now is here and there and everywhere… I don’t have my own place… I live with my parents again –as a 27 year old graduate I live with my parents again! But it is not as bad as it could be… I enjoy being able to spend some time with my parents, play cards, cook for and with them, help cleaning and just being together –it has been a while after all. And then I get to visit my friends for a bit in Aarhus and in Copenhagen –living with them and getting close to them…. I don’t want to say “again”, because I actually don’t feel that I got distanced to them this time, they were always close by, they knew that I needed them even though I was far away… That’s the beauty of true friendships, that distance doesn’t matter...

Life in Denmark, now also means being AIESEC Alumni –standing on the side and watching new people running the organization and taking it the next step…. I’m proud of them … And even though I can’t help getting a little bit involved and always join the discussions about the strategy and the future of the organization, then I truly enjoy this new position. Next weekend I will witness the new generation of AIESEC Denmark leadership body getting elected… and I am so so proud of my successor who is applying for the National President position and I am sure he will do an amazing job if he gets elected!!

But my life in Denmark is so not busy as it used to be… and that’s what is difficult for me to adjust to and accept… I feel I am wasting my time… I can do small projects on the side… but when I am this super motivated, when I have these dreams, when I have taken this education –then I also want and need to use it!

 If I am not given the opportunity to do so then I have to create the opportunity…  

I never say goodbye...

It is quite some time ago that I wrote a draft for a ”I never say goodbye...” post for my blog. But whatever I wrote seemed incomplete. I was not able to describe how the experience in Bangladesh had touched me and how much the people mean to me.

However I still feel it is worth trying… and thus I will post what I managed to write back then.

My time in Bangladesh is slowly coming to an end…. I would be fooling myself and everybody else if I was saying that I am not happy to finally be returning to Denmark. I have missed my home, my family and my friends for a long time now and I feel that everything will only be right when I am together with them again.

However, turning around the old saying; that whenever a door closes, another opens… then whenever a door opens, another closes….

Throughout my time here in Dhaka I have met so many great people. I have been so lucky to be part of an organization  (AIESEC)–which is more than a travel agency- which creates relations across borders…  Through this organization, I have in a very short time got to know so many local Bangladeshi students that other people have even noticed and commented on it. But I have not only met the local Bangladeshi students through this organization, , I have shared my room with a Japanese and a Dutch girl, I have lived with Chinese (Hong Kong), Australian, Italian, Indian and Austrian students. I have met up with Columbians and German interns. I have shared a huuuge experience with each of these people. In addition I have met a lot of passioned students at Grameen Bank who all will go back to their countries as well.  And as you know from my previous post, I have randomly met people who also contributed to a great extent to this experience…Without those people, my experience would not have been the same!

And now the experience is coming to an end… I have this strange feeling because I know most of these people will only belong to this exact time and place… most of them I will never see again!

I never like endings… It’s the same with a good book or movie… even when it has a happy ending –as I believe my experience in Dhaka will have and even when I’m already looking forward to the new beginning –then the fact that now will never be again is sad. And as there’s nothing I can do or actually want to do about then I rather jump straight to the next chapter… The last few days is self-torturing…

However, I remind myself that I never say goodbye, I say “see you later”… because even if most of the people only belong to here and now then it is up to myself –if I want to see some of them again, I can make sure to do so.

Now I have jumped to the new chapter which I will write a post about as soon as possible (who knows, maybe tonight). And I can only say, I miss all my dear friends and I even sort of miss Dhaka :)

See you all again, some day, my dear friends!