403 days and no fanfare
I fell guilty that I never truly sat down to document my experiences here in Germany, usually I just sat down with vague promises of "I promise to update later" but then.. ahh well, that's how I am sometimes I guess.
While I wanted this to be a sort of "au pair chronicles", it didn't turn out that way at all. Which, while not a bad thing is also not a great thing either. Some reasons pop into my mind when I think about why I didn't write as often as I had hoped one being that when I first arrived I was thrown into a world of chaos so to speak, which set the tone for the rest of the year. Yet, I could have found time for myself, I could have said "no" and gone upstairs. But instead I chose to hang out, hang around. Watch German television I couldn't understand and forgo late night skype calls with friends in California.
It isn't terrible that I didn't write more, after all I can probably count on one two hands the number of people who read this, and those people usually take the time to talk to me outside of this "blog". Still,I can't help but feel that in a way I missed an opportunity with this journal. I refrain from calling it a blog, since I don't feel I have written in a way that is accessible or welcoming for someone who just happened to stumble here without knowing me or my background story. Recently, I myself had stumbled across traveler blogs like Twenty-Something Travel, Where is Jenny, C'est Christine among others and I find myself beating my head becuase these people, these women are doing what I want to do. I'm not talking about wanting to be a professional blogger, I know that's a shot in the dark and not necessarily where my passions lie. But these girls are getting paid to travel the world. They are getting paid to do what most people have to spend money on. Not many people can say that they've lived abroad, or been an au pair- but I can. Somehow I feel like I should have put this time to better use than what I did with it.
Granted, in the end I still come out a different person. I am stronger, maybe wiser than I was before. I have learned to better accept myself and my shortcomings. I have had the opportunities to marvel at the first steps of a child, the first teeth, the contagious laughs. I have been there first hand a part of it.
I have learned what it feels like to truly feel alone, how it feels to be thousands of miles away from any sort of familiarity and the complete feeling of isolation and desolation while standing alone in a forest that spreads miles and miles in each direction. I have seen death, in one year I went from never having experienced death besides that of loved pets to attending two funerals and having my own family member die. I coped, alone often times with tears, sometimes through the receiver of a cellphone but alone without the unspoken comfort of an embrace, a hug, a shoulder to cry on. I have been sick, I have been sad, I have been happy but for the most part I've done it alone.
I have seen friends move on with lives: marriages, buying homes, decorating future nurseries... I have often times felt myself stagnant, felt myself removed.. A quote from Siddartha by Herman Hesse comes to mind:
Then he saw clearly that he was leading a strange life, the he was doing many things that were only a game,
the he was quite cheerful and sometimes experienced pleasures, but that real life was flowing past him and did
not touch him.
I am sometimes conflicted, is what I am doing real life? Or is what is happening via facebook real life? I am hesitant to leave becuase the moment I step back into my old life, the old roles I will have to play again the more this time here will feel like a dream, like if this was a "play vacation" and now that I've had my fun I should return to school or get a "grown up job", be a duteous daughter, a productive member of society.
I am hesitant to leave becuase I know in doing so I leave a part of me behind. A part of me that will always be here in Germany. I will leave the me I was here, the me I can never be when I return to California becuase there is no room for that me to exist.
It pains me to leave, to leave "my" child. The little person that has become a part of me, the child who I would drop everything for. She must stay behind, and I must go.
I don't even know if what I'm writing makes sense, it all feels like ramble to me.
I leave on Monday for my travels. I'll be taking a month to travel through northern France, southern Germany, and Austria. I will post details as well as a travel agenda for anyone who wants to know where I am (in case I get kidnapped or something).
The sand is almost out, both literally and figuratively and so, tonight I must take my leave
[Edit: Thank goodness, I thought I lost this entire journal entry. I was writing it last night and hit post just as the internet cut out... I had only copied and pasted the first portion onto a word document and was so upset when I thought I had lost this post. Yay for LJ restoring the entire draft (this time).
Also, today I got my Eurail pass in the mail, it's finally making the trip seem more concrete and dare I say I am more excited (and really nervous) now that it feels "more real". I have some seat reservations to make and will return tomorrow with a complete itinerary for all of you to see.]