Wide open spaces

"Wide Open Spaces"
Who doesn't know what I'm talking about
Who's never left home, who's never struck out
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone
Many precede and many will follow
A young girl's dream no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her, she hasn't yet guessed
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the highest stakes
She traveled this road as a child
Wide eyed and grinning, she never tired
But now she won't be coming back with the rest
If these are life's lessons, she'll take this test
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the highest stakes
As her folks drive away, her dad yells, "Check the oil!"
Mom stares out the window and says, "I'm leaving my girl"
She said, "It didn't seem like that long ago"
When she stood there and let her own folks know
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes...
(Dixie Chicks)


The first time I heard this song, I was transfixed. This was me. This song was speaking of me in a way that I was not yet able to understand. Of course, it speaks about a million people at the same time, I'm not saying I have anything special about me that a song is only about me. But it reflected my experience, having a dream and pursuing "out west", leaving the family who worries about you, having those wide open skies and room to make mistakes and finding my own way in a country where I cannot really rely on anybody, and my family is way too far to solve my everyday petty problems...
I have the feeling that "locals" don't really understand what being a foreign student means. Oh of course, you're exotic because you come from another country. But what about when you can call your family every day? Or what about Thanksgiving? Or Christmas? They go spend the holidays with their families, and we stay here, alone, far from the warmth of a family gathering. Our company is not a stuffed turkey, rather, it is a book, the TV, some ice cream maybe, and the silence. The void that cannot be filled. That piece of yourself, of you own soul that you left somewhere around the world.
Yes, I know the stakes. And they are outrageously high.