I went home this weekend. It has been dramatic. It has been chaotic. It has been better. It has been nice. It has been sad. It has been inspiring.
Now, I won't get into the nitty gritty details of the drama. I'm sure it will come up again when I get frustrated with mom's immaturity, Sam's attitude, or when I am sad about the fact that our family is so incredibly fragmented to the point where we are just three separate individuals nowadays. However, that is not concerning me at the moment. Or frankly maybe I am just tired of the relentless mental turmoil it has put me through this weekend.
No, I am sad at selfish reasons. My own reasons. The fact that I feel like I have not lived yet.
This weekend I met up with Janelle, who has been residing in Belgium and from her count 15 other countries for the past year, and Shohei, who has been in London and several other places for the semester. It was nice seeing their faces and it was exciting hearing their stories, at first. I was in awe hearing their adventures of couch surfing, their overjoyed excitement of the people they met, the gloating of the spontaneous encounterings. The hikes that turned into 12 hours of solitude in a cabin that had no water or food, the pinot and homemade almond wines of their hosts, the cafes, the food, the existence they built in which they abandoned their reservations and just let go, embraced what the world had to offer, came out of their shells and changed. I could see it Dad. Both of them, they changed. They are more worldly, they know that what is out there and how much is out there, what is worth living for, is outside the lines, outside the boundaries, that the place to be is the unknown as the world really is open to all. It was exciting to hear these stories. But just at first. Then it got tiring. Then it got annoying. And then, it simply made me sad.
I could not relate. I couldn't add to their fascinating lives. All I could do was sit there, rotting in jealousy thinking of what I have been doing: wasting my time being sad or caught up in the drama of my sob story life. While almost all of my friends are in Europe or India or Australia, I was on my couch crying to myself, missing you, ignoring my friends and school. My escape wasn't the temples in Nepal, eating my way through Italy or prancing around in the dream like Cinque Terre. My escape was in shitty television.
It's hard watching all of your friends travel, see the world, open up their eyes and ultimately change. Oh, I have changed. But through the toughest way, the way no one wants to change. I have changed through loss, through sadness, through anger, through confusion. I have changed in slow motion. Sitting on a couch. Pondering my thoughts. Being by myself. It is the worse way to change. But I have changed. I know I have changed for the better. But right now I feel like I have changed for the worse. I feel like I am more cynical, I am more realistic, I am more hopeless. I really do hope this is just a phase, and I am sure it is. The outcome from this mess will be rewarding one day I am sure. But to be honest I just feel like it is unfair. I want to change the way all my abroad friends changed. I want the out of the body experiences. I want to be cultured. I want to be worldly. I want to let go of my thoughts opposed to sitting in them and just live. I want to be care free.
It's funny because when I was listening to their stories I would just be in shock about how friendly people are or how for some ungodly reason they didn't get raped. The thing is I am scared, I am inhibited. As if I am just a cynical, skeptical, never spontaneous American. Where my way of being carefree was going to bars and getting drunk. Ohhhhhh coachella livin the life! Outside Lands 2012 here I come! Woohooo let's go to Vegas for my 21st! Oh I just feel childish now. It's not that I am not appreciative and I am sure my experiences are dreams to others. But I want a different dream, I want the dream of building myself, evolving, not through death or loss or vulnerability but through people, places and the world. I want to meet people I never thought I'd meet. I want to be in situations in which I don't think but just do. I want to ditch my Trader Joe's salad every day and sit and eat the best pasta I will ever have. I want to stop being so insecure and socially awkward and just let go and meet interesting people. I want to stop and know what's going on in the world and not just focus on what's in my head! The politics! The customs! The realization that hey you are not the only one in the world, look around at what's going on!
Now I know I can do all of this here, but then again I really can't. But I feel like I am so mentally damaged that I need that push. I need to be somewhere completely out of my element. I need to grow up, not through this mess that's been going on. Janelle and Shohei have matured so much. I know I have too, but it is just different. I know I have matured in a way they will never be able to experience, and their experiences are reachable for me. But I want that now. I feel like I deserve it now. It's just not fair. I have been dying to study abroad since before I came to college. Never stepping outside of the US. Hardly even traveling throughout the US. I took Italian so I can study in Italy for christ sake! So how come I can't go. How come I am life has given me this crappy situation, where my family is financially and mentally broke/broken.
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