Well its 5:30a on the day I leave. I don't have to go until this afternoon but we all know I don't sleep much the night before I am off and away. Trying to enjoy my last moments in my pillow/memory foam topped bed with a sweet Bella all snuggled up on my side. It's so emotionally draining to be so sad to leave a place but so excited to go back "home" at the same time. One minute you are up excited to see your roomie, friends, go out dancing, have your own flat again, be back in your little Euro city, and the next moment you are down because you are going to miss so many things about being home. I walked slowly through all the stores today taking in all the English words...spoken English...American products and brands where I can read the labels and ask for anything I need...the huge openness of everything...endless options...but mostly, feeling like you belong and everything being familiar.
I will miss all of that.
Saying good bye to friends and family again over the last week has also been difficult. I knew I was missing something in my relationships in Bratislava, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Having a history with people and having them know and love so much about you is something I never considered that important. I figured that all but 4 of my friends in socal had moved away so there wasn't really a point in me sticking around either. Now I see how AMAZING it is to have 4 fantastic friends in your city who you have known for years and can be completely yourself with. And how precious it is when your other friends DO come into town and you are able to catch up. It might require extensive driving around the city sometimes...but its worth it. To feel so at home. It's hard for me to want to go deeper with my friends in BA knowing we are all so temporary. We love each other, but besides roomie and I, we don't talk about anything serious going on in our lives or from our past. We just are what we are for the time being. Which is great and lovely, but not better then my loves from home.
However, I am not happy living at home in the suburbs with my parents. After a few weeks here I got really irritable with the same things I did when I lived here before, so I know when I move back I can't be here more then a month without going out of my mind. So it's time to start saving saving saving. While here I saw a glimpse of what my life would be like if I moved down south in the city. I realized I have an entire group of friends there that I LOVE, there are tons of things to do, its relatively cheap, and far enough away from home so I won't go crazy but close enough I can still come up for family dinner on Sundays. I have been wanting to move down there FOREVER but the timing has never been right, I am hoping in 6 months it will be.
Things with work are crazy again which is another reason I am considering not returning after Christmas. Everything was getting better in the last few months before I left, but I am about 98% sure I am heading into a shit storm when I get there. SERIOUS people in admin have quit, gotten fired, or are being seriously reviewed and they haven't even officially told any of us. I found out from roomie who is still friends with people from when she worked there. I guarantee they aren't telling us on purpose because they know we wouldn't come back if we knew. They'd rather greet us on the first day back with "so...you might notice some people missing...". PLUS we were paid 5 days extra late this month. We were theoretically supposed to regularly be paid 20 days earlier but legally speaking it was only 5 days late. Its complicated. Either way, theres no excuse for it and its ILLEGAL to pay us late but because we are foreigners and don't know how to report anything we are kind of stuck into getting fucked every month. It's just not a healthy environment with everything being so insecure and up in the air all the time- it leaves me stressed out and anxious which I don't need on top of being a first year teacher in a foreign country. So we'll see how the year goes.
I am SO excited to go dancing this weekend at our old haunts! I've only been once since I got to socal and am just not used to not going out every weekend. I just love it so much!
So I guess this is my good bye socal. It feels like I just got here, I can't believe how fast it all went! I will miss so many things about you.
Back to Europe I Go...
xoxo
HL
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