There's a bizarre phenomenon that haunts me when I leave the country. I feel like I'm wearing a hood, and maybe blinders, as I walk around and live the new place.
I'm plagued by the feeling that I'm not making the most of things. I'm perpetually exhausted, and always trying to push myself to feel like I'm doing enough, seeing enough, experiencing enough. Enough!
People say, "you're in Switzerland! How glamorous, you're so lucky." And it's true. And I am. (Lucky, that is, definitely not glamorous.) But all the luck builds itself up into this weird pressure to get every drop out of this opportunity, leaving very little room to breathe. I'm so weighed down by being in a dorm setting again (and just in general not feeling confident at all, let alone feeling like myself) that it takes just that much more effort to feel like I'm seeing what's around me.
I mean, I am traveling quite a bit while I'm here. Spring break starts in less than a week, Easter break gives me a few days to travel, and then I'm on the move for almost three weeks when Kristin and Everett get here. I am seeing, and I am doing. And if I'm not "enough", than I certainly will be by the end of things.
I wonder if the weather has anything to do with it. I know the language thing is tricky. You never want to be hated for being the dumb American who can't speak French. At least in TZ people were impressed by my little bits and pieces of Swahili, here people just seem annoyed when they have to speak to me in French.
I don't go out here. I never really hit my stride with things so I end up feeling like I'm tagging along, and who wants that? Plus, people mostly go to the British pubs... in Geneva. I've been looking at the live music scene and I'm trying to get more into that as a way of seeing town. Cafes and restaurants are expensive, so I'm basically just waiting for my parents to come, haha.
In a lot of ways I feel like I grew up and out over the last 6 months or so, but now I've been put back in a box and shipped overseas. It's funny, because I definitely felt like this when I was in Arusha, even though looking back I feel like I saw and did a hell of a lot.
So, gotta keep my head down and my chin up I suppose. Maybe I'll get better at this the more I travel. For now I'm just movin along, or trying to the best I can.
