Month: July 2014

I just wanted to give a tip about looking at the homepage, read the titles from left to right along the line, then move down to the next line and proceed left to right reading. It’s a bit confusing since there are no date and time stamps on each post, but that’s the best advice I have. Also on the recent posts, the most recent post will always show up at the top.

I think a large part of how I’ve been feeling is to sort out, as my title suggests rather vaguely, the first intention of me moving here. I have a ton of feelings associated with them. I’ll try to organize them so that anyone who doesn’t have my brain can understand them.

1) Fear. A ton of that. I have fear that my intentions might prove wrong, that I might be proved wrong, that the gamble I have made will fail, that, truly, anything can happen. Fear that mistakes I have made will come back up and stick up into my face. Fear that I have worked so hard, studied so hard, and if it doesn’t bear fruit, what does that make me? What does that make the people who have supported me? Who would I be?

2)Guilt. Because I have done so much, had the support of so many people, that I would never want to let down on purpose.

3) I’ve actually realized it’s just a whole load of fear and that’s basically it. How deceivingly simple.

So here are the questions I have stemming from fear:

1: If I have done this, moving here, primarily in the pursuit of love, big if (which, knowing the inside of my brain I haven’t sorted yet), what does that make me? Does it make me undetermined? Does it make me a risk taker? Does it make me a lovesick foolish romantic? Does it mean my career ambitions are over? Does it make me a push over, a door mat? What does my existence here look like if it is the case? Does it mean anything else I do that gets in the way is pointless?

2: If it isn’t, then what am I doing? I am certainly not fluent in German, nor am I working as hard as I did in school, or not nearly enough to be working towards that.

3: Am I worried to go outside, to experience because of the way that this future is not guaranteed to me? What would all this hope and desire and dreams mean if I can’t get them? If I can’t stay what would this have meant? To step out to the horizon, dreaming of what lies ahead, to only be jerked backwards? I know this one is rather silly, because what is actually guaranteed to us in life, but knowing so much that my future life is so in flux, so contingent on a university, on a person, on a dream, on an official, really makes me feel so helpless and out of control. And maybe that’s another thing I’m feeling, that, to an extent, I’m spinning out, flailing my featherless wings, trying to see where the ground is. Continuing with the bird metaphor I wonder…

Am I bird or a person or both? If I’m bird, person, other, where am I going? Am I meant to be on the ground? Where are my wings? How can I learn to fly? Do I even bother? Where am I, who am I, where am I going? Sometimes I feel like I’m walking along a tightrope not sure how far the fall is, if the weather will blow me over, feeling just so vulnerable and out of control, moving slowly forward because I can’t figure out how to turn around, walking in a fog where I can only see my next step, sure of the next moment, only sometimes.

4: Am I worried to put myself out there because if I fail what does that make me? More of a life question I think.

5: Am I staying here, tied to what I think I should be doing?

So so many questions. I guess this blog is turning more into a diary. Which I guess it should since I barely do anything really, so don’t actually have any events to blog about.

Am I harsher to myself?

I know that all these weird existential questions should prompt me towards a turning point and epiphany sort of moment where I say aha, it’s all better now. But I feel just off kilter, like I haven’t found something to right me up, like one of those turtles who gets stuck on his back rocking back and forth trying to get back on its feet. I want to be the one who puts me back on my feet, abruptly breaking the turtle metaphor because I’ve never stayed put long enough to see a turtle save itself. Every moment plods along, it will sweep me up, and I will change and think more, but I don’t know if it ever gets all better. Aren’t these questions quite large?

This has been a lot of thinking, can I be done for the day?

Having a bit of me time is a good thing. It gives you a chance to spend time with yourself, relax, be yourself with no one else around. It is a great thing.

I feel that I have gotten a bit of me time, a lot actually now. I don’t know, I don’t usually mind being on my own really. I enjoy reading, I enjoy listening to music, playing, doing yoga. I don’t know if just my current mood is affecting the time I spend together or what.

I think a lot of this has to do with my intentions. This is an incredibly hard topic for me to talk about. One, because I haven’t sorted it out completely in my own head and two, because it is always so much in flex. How you feel one moment can completely be different in the next. It can bounce from polar opposites. I am always hesitant to speak about things until they are settled and I know more about them, and, more so, more about the person I am when I have them. Am I vindictive? Am I spiteful? Am I a fool? Etc. But the more I think, the more I want to share, the more time I spend just in my own head, makes me realize that this is the moment to share.

There will never be a moment that I am completely sure of what I feel and who I am. That doesn’t make me a bad person, that doesn’t mean I don’t have my stuff sorted out, it makes me a person. Because who knows completely how they feel about something one moment and who they are in that moment with absolute certainty? The essence of life is change.

It’s incredibly hard for me to understand, and extremely hard to let go. When you feel this way you do a lot of listening, a lot of thinking, and a lot of time sitting alone with your own thoughts. I used to think, I am too busy to think about them, I have too much going on. And that’s not healthy either.

So while my alone time is lovey to do this, and this blog is lovely to write out some of this, my thoughts on paper, it is having an effect on me. When I feel sad or something is bothering me it is extremely hard, without deadlines and projects to work on, to work on German and to stay motivated.

And I realize that this blog post now has nothing to do with the title or my original intention. I guess that’s perfect because it is entitled intentions. And like my post describes, everything changes, even my own intentions.

As I was talking to my mom last night, I had a weird revelation.

I feel isolated and somewhat sad here recently.

I feel a multitude of feelings regarding that sentence, so much feels. So how do I feel? I feel a bit guilty, sad, lonely, and a bit stagnant. I know I’m just in the bottom of a rut now, but it still is the bottom (or maybe just the descent? although I hope not) blues. I feel as if I don’t know a lot of people here well, certainly not comparable to my friends from home (but that’s to be expected), I feel as if I can’t really go around confidently (perhaps a catch 22 cycle about how I feel and my skills in German) which is just contributing to me feeling really down and not willing to talk. Although I did get dressed, made up, and went around downstairs, and a bit outside. Progress is slow isn’t it?

I know awareness of this is supposed to make me change and motivate me to action and movement, but I also appreciate that everything is a journey and I don’t think I’m ready to do that yet.

I know that it will change, and like most things, this is a process, denial, depression, acceptance, change, etc. I know I will move forwards with it, just for today I would like to just be a bit, and not work on changing or progressing, just be how I feel.

This personal blog concept is still a little strange to me, but I’m working with it. I think one of the main things revolving around my mind in the past weeks has been the changes I have to go through. During my past relationship I gave up parts of myself, debateably most of them, in the pursuit of being someone worth of someone elses love. Which, as you might be able to imagine from it being a past relationship, didn’t work out. Not so much because I woke up and realized this wasn’t who I wanted to be, but because it wasn’t working out. I think I ultimately wish I could have woken up like that and thought, this isn’t who I should be, but I didn’t, because I think I had lost touch with myself. Anyway, having in a sense, given up things; my home, my friends, my family, familiarity in a sense, I wonder about many things.

First off, I wonder about my choice of words, “given up”. It seems so harsh and a bit untrue because I still have them. But I also wonder if I harbor a shred of resentment, possibly? (although it hurts a bit to admit this), at giving these things up in the pursuit of love and a future I really want. But I think the choice of words is more about coming to terms with the consequences of change. I think, somewhere I must have heard it, is that change is often spurred by pain. Because if you’re all la-di-da happy, then what incentive do you have to change? If you stay at home all day, what incentive do you have to leave? If you always stay, when will you leave? There is a degree of pain in change. Call it what it is. It is indeed a learning experience, but there are some that are indeed painful. But perhaps, as I hope to find, it is a cathartic cleansing type of pain, a necessity to growth. I’m not saying all growth must be painful, but there is a certain pain to leaving behind what you’ve known, being lonely, isolated, and forced to change.

And as I work through what I’m feeling, as I’m typing, I realize I don’t remember what the second thing was anymore.

I remember now, for a bit I felt that learning German was just another thing I was giving up. Because I write a lot, and read even more so, I felt that being able to communicate eloquently was something that was inherently me. I am proud of it, so “giving up” English, was in a sense, and still is, hard for me. I know you have to work in German and what not to get better, but there has to be a way to balance both. Maybe half and half I guess. I haven’t found it yet, but there has to be a way. Maybe then everything will all feel a bit more manageable.

I realize this is posted after the day, but I just set the site up and wanted to post what I had written, even though it is way past the fourth.

So if you know me really well, you will know I’m not terribly patriotic. I’m not anti-USA, I just don’t generally get so excited about the famous holidays for their intended purpose. I don’t go to an annual Fourth of July party, I don’t barbeque, I rarely participate like the majority of people. This year was an exception though. For some reason, an ocean away, I have found a sliver of my patriotic spirit. I wore red, white, and blue, obviously, and I organized a party. And for a few days when I didn’t think it would happen, I was really upset, and I was wondering why. I never had a party or celebrated before, so why all the upset now? Why, when I am in a country full of non-Americans, for the most part, do I feel so upset about not having a proper party? And then it kind of hit me when we were eating dinner. A friend asked us, potentially slightly jesting (but with good intentions I’m sure) to me and the rest of the group, what we liked about America the best. I was first and it made me think. I said something along the lines of, “I definitely don’t harbor a blind love for America (clearly paraphrasing since I have the memory of goldfish), but it is the only home I’ve got, the place I call home home for most of my life, and for that, I love it for it”. I hope I was more eloquent, although I highly doubt it. But it is true. I wrote about feeling as if I was keenly made to feel, in my own head, to be the outsider, and so it made me aware of what I was.

Despite my qualms and interesting history, I am American. It’s home, and it took me an ocean away to find out why I love it. It was different in Vienna because they made us feel we could attain Thanksgiving with the special dinner and I was with many students all missing our homes and turkeys. But yesterday it was just me, alone, being reminded of what I had left behind, feeling nostalgic. Which lead to me baking an apple crisp, close enough to a pie for me, and we made burgers. It was the best Fourth of July I have ever had, in Germany, and on the Third of July (I should mention this fact since I haven’t before now), because it was the most heartfelt and patriotic I think I’ve ever been. So today, while it is actually the Fourth, happy Fourth of July to everyone!

Thank you to everyone who helped me celebrate!

Because if I talked about yesterday, it would involve a lot of tiredness and jetlag. I went to bed at midnight, mostly because I have this, debateably, horrible compulsion where I cannot sleep until I am unpacked. Since I unpacked for hours in this apartment, which is already full with stuff, it took that long.

That being said, I woke up around five from a deep sleep, puttered around a bit, then went back to sleep until eleven. I then proceeded to do errands which involved going back to the grocery store and the pharmacy. I also did laundry, made gazpacho for lunch, unfortunately not mine, and kept cleaning.

Walking around the mall, I felt like everyone was looking at me, almost as if I didn’t belong and everyone could tell. Whether it be asking where parmesan cheese was, what method of payment I wanted to use, or negotiating an employee to pack my shopping bag, I felt like I was an outsider, and everyone knew it. It was that weird sensation you get when you are absolutely certain that everyone, literally, is looking at you. Not even staring, because that would confirm that nagging suspicion, but that they need just one glance to look at you and know, because it’s that quick to determine, that you are the outsider. Like when you walk into a room and everyone looks, then goes back to what they’re doing. I’m sure, with about forty percent certainty and sixty percent hope, that it will go away.

I don’t know if it’s because I feel I’m dressed differently, don’t really speak German, or am scared to draw attention to myself, but it is what it is.

On the subject of German, I know in my heart that I will feel much better once I can speak more of it. I also know, deep in my heart, that I am the only one standing in my way. Which is both infuriating and terrifying at the same point. I am stuck inside that box of sameness, where you look at yourself in the mirror and know exactly who that person staring back at you, except now I can’t be that here. We could say, whatever, be who you are, and I am, but change is good and both realistic in this sense. I must learn, I must change so I can be happy here, fit into, with a degree of flexibility. I am a new person here, and furthermore, which is really what is important in my mind, is that I want to be. I want to change, I want to learn and adapt, and figure out who this person is that stepped off the plane into a, seemingly, different world.