Hello all,
I know I fell off the face of the blogging world again for the last month. My sincere apologies for that. It's just hard for me to blog unless I'm in the right mood, and the last month was definitely a personal challenge for me.
Living in Germany is still a challenge for me, I've gotta say. It does seem to be getting slowly better, though, which is a relief. I guess I had expected that, along with the Fulbright, such a prestigious award, or so I'm told, I would gain all sorts of wonderful and impressive professional knowledge and experience.
Au contraire, my friends. This experience in Germany has been and is going to be a nearly completely personal growth adventure, I'm quite certain. I've been experiencing a lot of loneliness, and not for any good reason, really. I've met a few wonderful people, my environment is quite all right... I'm just somehow not content here. I don't feel very necessary in my job (though the kids and my colleagues are all lovely), there have been some unnecessary and ridiculous issues with one roommate in particular (though the others, and even the problem one are very sweet and friendly and great), and I just miss home. I miss my social network, the friends and family with whom I have spent so many hours and with whom I feel so comfortable.
I've started realizing that part of it may perhaps be the fact that I am in a massive urban area, and maybe I am just not cut out to live in such a place. At the beginning of last week, I took part in a three-day seminar with foreign language assistants from the Düsseldorf area. We went to museums and such highlighting the highly-industrial nature of this region, and I had the good fortune to meet a lot of great people who all live near me. Thank god. However, I'll save the details for another post (which I promise to write before another month goes by), and get to my point. During one of our tours, I went up to an observation deck on top of a former natural gas storage tank, 11 stories high. I was amazed to realize that, for as far as the eye can see in every direction, there are people and highways and buildings and huge industrial plants. One of the tour guides mentioned that my region is known for the way one can go from one city to another to another and never realize quite which city he's in, as they all just touch and blend into each other.
I was somehow shocked to learn this. I guess I'd just never considered it before. I knew that, every morning, when I wake up, I get to clear green gunk from my throat and figured it was due to air pollution. I also knew that it bothered me a bit that there is really nowhere quiet and green and "wild" feeling around me. Seeing and hearing about the unending people, though, I really started to think. When I flew to France a few weeks ago (oh, yeah, I flew to France a few weeks ago... I'll speak more about that in a future post, as well), I was nose-to-the-window, trying to inhale the view of green plots of farmland and sparse villages. I also felt very content in Lyon, a city with lots of open, quiet spaces. It didn't occur to me until after I left that perhaps all this is telling me that I'm just not a super-urban girl.
In a conversation with my friend Megan a month or so ago, I relayed some of my feelings about being here, and she asked me , "So, are you going to stick it out all the way, then?" This question actually shocked me. I had never, ever considered giving up and just going home. I could. It is always a possibility. I won't, though. My aunt Kim told me one day that she has always been proud of me for pushing through everything I've ever taken on. These words mean a lot to me, and I guess I'm just that kind of person; I signed up for this, and I'm going to finish it, no matter what it takes.
Besides, through talking with my peers, it is likely not just Germany that is screwing with my head, but also my phase in life. It sounds like a lot of my fellow 2010 graduates are feeling just as lost as I am, not knowing what's in their futures or which direction to even aim. As my wonderful Romain brought up, I could be feeling the exact same that I am now, even if I were at home.
So, I'll stick it out. And, as my friend Mary in Aachen posted on Facebook, it's time to take control of my own happiness.
God, I love my friends. So much wisdom packed into such lovely people.
