Trapped in the memories

Memories can be a beautiful thing. They remind us of earlier times. We remember amazing, fun times with our friends and family, we remember concerts, travels and just everyday life. Memories are beautiful. But sometimes they can be haunting.

When we arrive to the states as an au pair, we start to look back at our life at home from a different perspective after just a short amount of time. We will have the great times with our friends and families in mind and we won’t think about the hard times. We will look back fondly and only recall the good memories. We will think about our siblings and think how much we love and miss them, but we most likely won’t be thinking about all the fights we had with each other on a daily basis. 

We will think of our parents and remember how much they love us and we love them, but we won’t remember all the times they annoyed us and all the fights we had with them. On one hand that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to only keep the good memories in mind and forget about the not so great ones, but in this case it distorts our view of our life back at home. We might think: “My life in America is so hard, everything at home was so much easier. I just want to go back”.

And that’s where it gets hard. Because if you really think it through, would your life at home really be so much easier and better than your life here? Would you have as many opportunities as you have here? Would your relationship with your parents and siblings still be as good as it is right now, or is it just great right now because you miss each other? Are things really that simple?

We can’t let ourselves get trapped in our memories. We can’t let our positive memories take over our reality. Life is hard and ugly sometimes. No matter if you live in your home country or in America. The important thing is not to lose focus. Don’t forget who you are and what you want out of your year. And don’t reminiscence about the past or dream about the future, live in the here and now!