Missionary Kid Monday: Deported

{For more on this series, click here}


If you caught the last post, you'll know that my senior year was pretty amazing! But like all good things, it had to come to an end.


And for us, the end of the road was Graduation.


Thing is, graduation felt more like deportation. Almost all of us were going back to the States or Canada for college... to several different schools in several different states. We would never all be together again!


Furthermore, most of us hadn't set foot in the States in YEARS! (I was an exception - and the unpleasant memories of my 11th grade year in California did nothing to make me look forward to college). 


So most of us felt bittersweet about graduation - and maybe that's generous. Maybe it was more bitter than sweet. 


My best friend Kara and I had been in the habit of going out for coffee every Wednesday before school. We were so sad to be ending that tradition:

Here's our last Wednesday coffee date.

We look awful. Like we were hungover from drinking our tears...

As far as I was concerned, graduation meant the end of everything good. I couldn't get past the thought that I was leaving the best years of my life behind me. That it was all downhill from here.

It was the wrong attitude to have, but I didn't realize that until YEARS later. You just couldn't convince my over-dramatic self that high school graduation was the end of the world.

My proud parents. And my dad 

was so excited to wear those glasses!

After the graduation ceremony, our class of 70+ was bussed across the border to Switzerland for a dinner cruise on the Rhine River. We signed yearbooks and tried to squeeze in the most fun possible on our last night together. 

After that, we all hung out by the bonfire back at one of the dorms. I have one picture from the bonfire and not a single person is smiling!! Once that was over, a bunch of students wandered around our little German town, talking and reminiscing with other graduates.

It was my first and only all-nighter.

And in the morning, I said good-bye to my best friend (she was heading to Texas and I was heading to Michigan). That day, I went into my room and just cried all day. My mom checked in on me at lunch and said I was lucky and blessed to have friends that I cared so much about leaving. It was a small consolation at the time, but now I realize she was absolutely right!

Stay tuned for next week - a missionary kid all on her own for college in a state she'd never been to!