Posted: 04/04/07

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Bill was barely able to get us his column this week, apparently because he has been spending an awful
lot of time with his new pet, a koala named Hank. Word on the Australian streets is that Bill has grown rather attached
to his furry friend. So much so that he included a photo with his column this week.

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Bill in the land down under
Life goes on...without me

Bill O'Connor | contributing columnist
woconnor@smcvt.edu

It hit me this past week. And when it did, it floored me. Things aren’t going to be the same when I get back home.

I left in February with the expectation that when I return home in June, everything will be as I left it, and even more so, that everyone will be anxiously awaiting my return. I couldn’t have been further from right.

Despite what I may want to believe, the world did not cease turning when I left for Oz. Strange as it may seem, my family and friends back in the States are living their lives and getting along just fine without me.

As Bob Dylan once sang “The times, they are a-changin'.”

My youngest brother will be taller than me when I get back. This is any older brother’s worst fear. He’ll have finished his freshman year of high school, and who knows, he may even have a job.

A job. Danny with a job. Ok, that one may have been a stretch.

My brother Patrick will have graduated high school and he’ll be preparing to start his freshman year at a college or university of his choice. I’m going to miss his high school graduation while I’m here. I didn’t even think about that until now.

Speaking of graduation, there are seniors at St. Michael’s that I’m rarely going to see after they graduate this spring. I can’t believe they’re going to be gone next semester. And I’m missing their last semester in Colchester. It’s weird to think of St. Michael’s without some of those guys and girls.

When all is said and done and I finally return home, I will have been without Owen Glubiak, Mallory Wood and a cohort of other friends who studied abroad last fall in my life for over a year. I’m beginning to forget what these friends look like.

Now I’m being melodramatic. I’ll stop.

I talk to my friends at St. Michael’s every now and then, but for the most part I’m clueless to what’s going on in their lives and to what sort of things will have changed when I return. I’m sure they’re making new friends in my absence and I sometimes wonder if my relationship with them will be the same when I get back in June or when school starts up again next spring.

My best friend since kindergarten just started a job with a large investment-banking firm. He’s starting what he hopes will be his career.

I’ll repeat that. He’s starting what he hopes will be his CAREER. How scary is that; this is the same kid who was still blowing snot rockets while we played whiffle-ball in his backyard just last year.

He called me up the other day because he was having some problems at home, which I am not at liberty to discuss. What I can say is that his life isn’t going to be the same when I return, and it’s hard not being there while he deals with all the changes taking place in his world.

Since I’ve been here, my younger cousin has been in and out of the hospital with encephalitis. She’s going through a really tough time and I can only imagine the toll it is taking on my aunt, uncle and her older brother. I know that even if I was home, there wouldn’t be much I could do; I’m no doctor and I certainly can’t control the situation, but at least I could be there for her and her family. Here I feel helpless, and helpless is a tough feeling to deal with.

Her older brother has his first real girlfriend now too. I can’t believe that. Here I am in Australia missing out on all the teasing and ragging on him that I should be doing. I know it sounds mean, but that’s our relationship and I’m missing it.

My point is this: one of the hardest things to come to grips with as an American studying or living in a foreign county is that life goes on back home, with or without you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. People and places change, and friends and family experience life without you there, by their sides.

It’s a hard concept to grasp, that the world does not revolve around me; after all, I think it should. I mean why not, who’s more important than me.

Regardless of what I think though, the world is going to keep turning, and people aren’t going to put life on hold until I return. Things will be different when I get back in late June, and that’s something I just have to learn to accept.

Life goes on…without me.