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.