A Different Life Was Waiting

Part 1: Why I chased a blank page across the Atlantic

Here we are, dear reader, about to embark on a very personal journey, one that shaped me in ways I still notice today, even though fifteen years have passed. It’s one of the most interesting things I’ve ever done and I’m deeply grateful and very aware, of what a privilege it was to be able to do it.

Before we jump into part one, here’s the quick overview.

When I was fifteen, I had the once-in-a-lifetime chance to go abroad, attend an American high school, live with a host family and experience a culture I had only seen on TV. It broadened my worldview in ways I didn’t yet have the language for and it changed the trajectory of my life. It was also, if I’m honest, an escape. I needed the change of scenery more than I admitted back then. More on that in a moment.

In this multi-part series, starting with this first entry, I want to explore why I went, how I got there, how different American school felt compared to home, what it meant to live in a very religious southern US state as a queer brown kid and how this was the first time I learned to use my “otherness” as something that could work for me, not against me. I want to talk about the dynamics of being placed into a huge family, something that was completely foreign to me and then eventually I want to jump back into the present and show you how this experience, a decade and a half ago, still influences how I move through the world today.

More details will probably appear along the way. That’s the fun of Substack, isn’t it - it evolves as you write, as you remember and as readers chime in with their own stories.

I’ve been digging for the hard drive that holds thousands of photos from that year. I was fascinated by everything, I took pictures of the most random things because they felt like culture shocks in the best way. I’ll share a few gems so we can go down memory lane together.

Okay, enough intro. If you’ve been here for a while, I hope this is up your alley. If you’re new, welcome - this is a great time to join.

---

---

Why I wanted to go

It was an odd time and I think many people can relate to what being fifteen feels like. You’re trying to figure yourself out, you think you have the answers to the world and in reality you don’t know anything at all. All of us go through that phase, but I’ll put myself on a small pedestal for a second and say that I had a few additional layers to navigate.

I was an adopted brown child in a rural southern German community. I always stuck out like a sore thumb. That wasn’t new, one look in the mirror was enough to confirm that I didn’t fit the standard of this place, but in those teenage years, you become especially skilled at turning differences into mountains. Things that were simply facts of life suddenly feel like obstacles you’ll never be able to climb.

Then there was the sexuality aspect.

There are always hints when you look back and maybe that’s an entire separate essay, but hints turn into facts the older you get. For many people in the queer community, the teenage years are where things start to click and that was true for me too. Yes, I played with Barbies as a little child, but realizing you like boys the way society tells you you should like girls is not as simple as choosing a toy. It’s a different kind of realization. It comes with fear, with questions, with the awareness that this could change how people treat you. That awareness alone is heavy.

So I was in high school with a long list of things to puzzle together, my race, my adoption story, my identity, my place in the world and then there was another thing that wasn’t really for me to “figure out”, but it shaped everything around me anyway.

My parents’ divorce.

I always struggle a little between being too candid and too guarded when I talk about this. This is a personal outlet, but it’s also public, so I’ll try to strike a balance. What I can say is that I had a strangely pragmatic view about the split and I think that helped me get through it relatively unscathed. There were hiccups, of course there were, but overall I navigated it decently enough.

Me looking very smug at 15. The fried hair is cracking me up today. Also, why did I have better skin at 15 than I have now? What is up with that.

The first feeling I had when my parents sat me down, crying, telling me they couldn’t continue like they had in the past, was - relief. Relief and hope, that things would finally get better for all of us. Today, many years later, I can say that more physical distance between them probably would have been healthier, but they made a very conscious decision to put me first and stay close, so I could still see both of them frequently.

Now combine a messy divorce with a tiny village where everyone talks about everything and gossip is basically a form of entertainment. Add that on top of everything that already made me stand out. The list was getting a little too long for comfort.

My parents were trying, they were doing everything they were capable of. I was never neglected, I was taken care of, but they were also on their own journeys, figuring out who they were in this new situation nobody was prepared for. Somewhere along the way, I became a pawn in their power games, being pushed around to prove a point, to apply pressure, to win a moment.

All of these pieces together, you can probably imagine why I started looking for an out. I needed distance. I was longing for space to breathe and honestly, for a clean slate. I wanted to shed whatever version of myself existed at home and start again, somewhere no one knew me, somewhere I could rewrite who I was or at least find out who I could become.

---

Ad break: Meet strangers from all over the world for thoughtful conversations. 1€/month to receive a random match and conversation topic into your inbox. Discover what’s out there, one conversation at a time. Use code WELCOME to test for three months at www.pool-match.com

---

I can’t quite recall when I first saw the ad, but I know it crossed my path at the right moment. An organization called Education First was promoting high school years abroad. Spend a school year in another country, attend school there, live with a host family, immerse yourself fully.

The moment I saw it, my mind was made up. This was what I needed. It felt like the perfect antidote to the situation I had found myself in.

Of course my parents were not jumping for joy.

First of all, it was expensive. Don’t get me wrong, I grew up privileged, we were fine financially, but a divorce introduces uncertainty for both parties and sending your kid abroad is not a small expense. It was also a lot of paperwork and organizational work and I don’t think they appreciated that landing on their plates while trying to finalize a divorce.

I think one of the main reasons they eventually agreed was guilt. They understood the motivation behind my wish even though I never verbalized it clearly. They picked up on the fact that I wasn’t just “excited about America”, I was looking for air to breathe.

So after some convincing, they agreed and the process started.

And let me tell you, it was a process.

There were interviews, there were rounds, there was something that almost felt like an assessment center, social tasks completed in an office in a big city that my mom and I had to travel to. I very clearly remember interviews at the US embassy, which, if you think about it, is wild. A fifteen-year-old boy from the countryside sitting in an embassy, talking about why he wants to go to the United States. I didn’t have the words to explain my full motivation. I talked about language and culture and education, but underneath it was the truth: I needed to leave.

Photo by Darya Grey Owl

My mom, at some point, became a supporter of the idea too, even though I think it hurt her. She was getting used to the idea of being alone, not only because of the divorce, but because I would be leaving for a while. I’m an only child and in the second half of my youth it was only her and I at home, so naturally I feel a sense of responsibility toward her. I think that is normal, but looking back I do feel a tiny bit of guilt. I didn’t fully understand what it meant for her back then. I wasn’t as aware of other people’s feelings as I am now.

Still, I was a child and she was the adult. I was trying to survive a complicated chapter in the only way I knew how, by creating distance and chasing a future I could breathe in. It pains me to think about it today, but for that to happen I needed to leave for a while.

Eventually the process ended and I emerged as the winner of bureaucracy. Documents were sent, approvals came in and everything was officially in motion.

That’s when the real challenge started.

My part was done. Now it was the agency’s job to find a host family, find a school and place me somewhere in the US.

What happened next was very unconventional. It put me on a trajectory I never would have expected and it shaped the entire experience in ways I’m still unpacking today.

But that’s for the next part.

Next time, we’re finally going on the trip and be ready, it will be a wild one.

Please - as this unfolds, chime in! Tell me what you relate to, tell me what you remember from being fifteen. Did you ever need an escape to save you? I would love to hear about it.

---