A Life in a Year

By Emmily K, Germany 2024-2025 School Year

Ten Months passed by in the blink of an eye. I remember the words of my family and friends clearly. “Enjoy every day, it will go by faster than you think.” I didn’t believe them. At our age, ten months feel like an eternity. It felt so far away. The leaving, the returning. So far we haven't taken it seriously. There was this intimidating but somehow exciting thought of packing what felt like your whole life into a 23kg suitcase and moving to a whole new country. But somehow, we were up for the challenge and we were chasing the thrill of it.

On August 26th, 2025 I stepped off that plane tired, excited and completely unaware of how much this place would change me. 5.055Miles and 8.136 kilometres away from home. At first, everything felt unfamiliar. The faces, the voices, the streets. We didn’t know the people, the country or the language. Everything was new. But slowly, and without really being aware of it, the unfamiliar turned into our every day routine and that routine turned into our second home. First Introductions that started with:”Hi, where are you from?” turned into late night deep talks and bittersweet goodbyes. Silly Friendships turned into deep connections and close relationships. And we grew, with each other, through each other. We’re all completely different. We all carry our package, our backstory. We’re from different cities, countries or even continents. But we’ve built Friendships that will last a lifetime, despite our differences.
The past ten months have given me so much more than I could’ve ever imagined. I have learned much more than what could ever fit into a classroom. Not only did I grow personally and gained confidence, I finally found the courage to leave my comfort zone, feel the fear but do it anyway as they say. And that is one of many reasons why my exchange year has been so fulfilling. Because for the first time in a long time, I finally felt like I was going forward. I felt myself becoming more open and lighter. Canada gave me space to breathe, to grow and process. Being here showed me how different life can be and that we’re not defined by the things we have been through. But it wasn’t always easy. There were several challenging moments in which I was very hard on myself, moments in which I missed my friends, my family and even things I never thought I would miss. ( actual Bread for example….. ) Looking back, I realise that those challenges were the exact moments in my life that helped me grow into the person I am becoming.

But most importantly, I was gifted with relationships that I’ve wanted and needed my whole life. People who didn’t just fill my days, but shaped them. People who helped me discover parts of me I hadn’t even learned to see in myself yet. And then suddenly, they become the thing you can’t imagine your life without. They are the ones who made ordinary days feel like memories in the making. The ones who turned classrooms into safe places and weekends into stories we’ll be telling for years. Shared lunches, shared jokes and shared ( endless ) rides on the 72. Somewhere along the way, they stopped being “the people I met on exchange” and became simply my people. And that is the part no one warns you about and nobody prepares you for. How deeply you can care about someone you didn’t even know existed a year ago and how hard it is to picture your everyday life without them once you’ve lived a version with them in it.

Now that our experience is coming to an end, I can’t help but pause and look back on this past year with a full heart. I came here as one person, and left as another.The people I met, the experiences I’ve made, the places I was lucky enough to see, are all things I will cherish forever. School events, Sports, School trips, classes and countless moments of laughter. Some of my best and favorite memories came from little things. Getting lost while trying to find the right classroom, absolutely losing your mind while trying to open your locker and avoiding it for days, the sayings that got lost in translation and caused great confusion and finding out you've been pronouncing not just one but multiple words wrong your entire life.
And just like that, what once felt like forever became ten months and I guess the hardest part about an exchange year isn’t arriving, it’s realizing how much you’re going to miss it when it’s time to leave.