Emo ramblings

Lately, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about home. Not in a "I'm really homesick" way, but in a "it's going to be so fucking weird when I have to leave here and go home" way. And it's hard to elaborate on these thoughts to other people here, because a lot of us probably don't want to think about it, or maybe are having the same kinds of feelings too, or maybe just because it's so hard to organize the jumble of conflicting feelings going through my mind. But I figure this is probably a good place to try to do that, so I apologize if this post makes no sense to anyone or if I seem to contradict myself a thousand times.

Sometimes when I'm alone in my room or walking through town something will suddenly make me think of something I used to do at home - very normal things, like driving from Royal Oak to East Lansing with my windows down singing to my music, or being at home in my living room wasting time watching reruns of America's Next Top Model, or talking to my mom (I know this is normal, but if there is one person from home who I legitimately miss, it's my mom. There have been multiple occasions when I would've given almost anything just to go home for a weekend and hang out with her) - and I get this feeling, that's not quite sadness or homesickness, but more of a dull achy longing to do those things again, and I think to myself that I still have 6+ more months here, and it feels like an absolute eternity. It's always a very brief and fleeting feeling, and it doesn't come very often, and it completely contradicts the much stronger feeling I have that I enjoy my life here so much and can't believe this experience is going to be over in only six short months. But it comes around every so often, and it literally makes my heart ache (the fact that my emotions can cause me physical pain is a whole different story). And I think that's completely normal.

But sometimes I wonder if I think about home, and what it will be like when I get back, a little too much. I often find myself thinking about people I used to know, and wondering if I'm going to see them when I return. Or I'll think about my house for next year, and how excited I am for it. And maybe it's just because I'm really looking forward to the next few years of my life, but I wonder if I'm the only one who's really excited for the life I'm returning to back home in August.

There were times last spring when I was walking through campus on my way to class or work, and I would look around me - at the other students, at the river, which was still full of chunks of ice, at the buildings and landscape and whole world I have grown so familiar and comfortable with over the last few years that I can safely say that I am absolutely in love with the place; and I would think to myself, I made the conscious decision, back when I was a senior in high school, to come to this place, and now I'm making the same decision to leave it. I only get four short years to enjoy what I have come to think of as the wonderful life that is being an undergraduate Michigan State University, and I'm choosing to forgo one of those years to live somewhere else, somewhere uncertain, on the other side of the world, without any of my friends or family or the comforts of home. And sometimes it scares me that I've become old enough to make those decisions - that when I was thinking about coming here, it was never a concern of whether or not my parents would allow it, but instead of whether or not I myself would allow it. When did I become responsible enough to choose to live overseas for a year? My transition from a child to an adult happened so quickly and smoothly that I didn't even realize it occurred.

I'm getting off-topic. The other day I was looking up flights for coming home, not because I'm so urgent to get out of here (that is completely not the case), but because my flight is currently scheduled for May (I have a flexible ticket, since we couldn't book a return journey far enough in advance when we bought our tickets last year) and I need to get it changed before airline prices start going up. So I looked at a calendar and tried to figure out how much time I think I'll want here after the semester is over and Hausarbeits are due, and I decided that the week of the 17th is probably the best to shoot for. But I simply couldn't bring myself to actually set a date. I'm putting off calling STA Travel because I am not comfortable with having a set amount of days left here. It's so much easier to just simply speak in approximations; once that date is set, it's final, and that day will be the day I'm forced to leave this life behind.

Because this isn't just a year abroad; it's so incredibly much more than that, in ways I can't describe because I know I haven't realized some of them yet. This is an experience that can never be repeated, and I know I should make the most of every single day I have here, because I'm never going to be able to do this again. That's the big difference about leaving home and leaving here - when I left home, I knew, with relative certainty, that when I came back, most of the things I left were still going to be there, and I was going to be able to come back and resume my old life. But what I'm doing here is so ultimately temporary. Yes, Freiburg will still be here after I leave, and it will continue to be the thriving, beautiful place that I have so come to love. But everything non-physical that I associate with Freiburg - the way it feels to live here, the simply wonderful friendships I have made, the people here who I am in love with - it all ends in August, and that is decided and final. There is no coming back. This wonderful, perfectly surreal world I am living in is incredibly temporary.

I was talking to Jeff the other day about the notion of temporarity. Growing up, my life was so stable - I kept most of the same friends all throughout school, I lived in the same house with the same people, and I was comfortable with knowing that my life was going to remain the same for all of those years. The first big transition of my life was, obviously, moving to East Lansing and going to State, but even that wasn't such a big change, because almost all of my friends were either with me at State or were still at home when I went back to visit. And I knew that I had at least four years of that stability left. But now we've all gotten to the age where we have to make decisions regarding our future and where we're going to be for the rest of our lives, and it makes me realize how temporary the next few years of my life are going to seem. Once I leave here, I have one more year at State, and then I'll do my teaching internship, hopefully in Detroit, during which I'll most likely live in Royal Oak. But after that? As long as all goes well, I'll pursue continuing to teach in Detroit, and I'd really love to move into the city. So I'll never be too far away from the physicalities of the stable life I grew up with - but everything is going to be different. The people I've gotten to know and love over the years are going to be scattered all over the place. Never again will I have a long period of time knowing that I'm going to be around those people. And I know part of growing up is learning to leave things behind, but I'm just so not ready to yet.

I cannot imagine how it's going to feel to leave this place, knowing that I will probably only see most of the people I've met here again once or twice before we all lose touch and go on with our own lives. I'm so glad that I'll be living with Becca next year because she'll be one of the only people I'll see on a consistent basis who will remotely understand how I'm going to feel. It's going to be unbelievably sad. I think leaving Freiburg is going to break my heart.

Which is why it's best not to dwell on such things, but instead to move forward and make the most of the precious time I have left. Believe me, these aren't things I'm constantly thinking about, nor does the thought of having to leave spoil the time I have here. Because I know how incredibly lucky I am to be living the life I'm living, and I'm not going to complain about the bad feelings that come with leaving such a life. This was just an attempt to articulate some of the things that pop up in my overly-active mind from time to time.

The last few weeks since Berlin have been, while uneventful, rather lovely. I'm enjoying (too much) this period of relative unbusiness before crunch time for Hausarbeits sets upon me. I really should be researching for my history paper instead of writing an emotional blog entry, but I think everyone who knows me knows my issues with productivity.

Tomorrow I'm going with the lovely Jason B. Ernst and a bunch of other friends to a cabin on Feldberg (the highest mountain in the Schwarzwald) for the night for snow-shoeing and other lovely winter activities. I'm so unbelievably excited. Expect a post with lots of snowy pictures to follow.