I am in Italy, middle way to my new life.
This morning, I received an email from a strong woman who is often put down by her partner who doesn't appreciate her. I witnessed this behavior of him. And I didn't like it. I grew up with my father, always putting down my sister, my mom and I. Often making us feeling that we were not good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, something not enough. My first serious relationship was with someone like that too.
Dominant men who probably are just too insecure about themselves to be real partners for someone. Men who like to dominate. My uncle is like that too. Never interested in other people opinions if these opinions don't match what he thinks. Men who are mentally abusive, who try to make people around them feeling like they are lucky to have this man around.
I wrote this multiple times in this blog. I was lucky enough, very lucky, to have met to great men in my life. Two people who not only made me feel appreciated for the exact way I was, but who also continuously showed me how much they loved me just the way I was. I received a lot from life so far, but meeting these two people is probably one of the best things ever happened to me. They changed the way I look at myself, I was a better version of myself with them because they were so supportive, so loving, so appreciative. They both thought me what it means and how it feels to be loved just for the way I am. This doesn't mean that they necessarily loved any aspect of me, but they loved the entire package, so that the things of me that they didn't like so much were not a big deal. I have never felt wrong or out of place or bad with them. I wish everyone in his/her life would meet someone who can make her/him feeling this way.
I get so so angry when I see people who try to put down others. I see this among my friends, I see this at work. People who are apparently so strong and dominating that act like anyone else is lucky just to breath the same air they do. When someone tries to put me down, now I react. Forcefully and strongly. Last time I saw my uncle he was trying to convince me about something he was completely wrong about...something related to my work. He wanted to be right, so when he saw that he couldn't convince me, he tried to shut me up saying "ok, now there is going to be a new Wikipedia according to XXXX (saying my name)" and laughed about it, trying to humiliate me in front of others. Of course, he is so strong and forceful that everyone else thought that he was right and I was wrong. The point is not who was right or wrong, but the fact that I was not allowed to have my own opinion and express it and defend it because it was different than his. These dominating people, when they see that they cannot convince the other, often go for humiliating this person, generally in front of other people.
I grew up with this, until when in my 20s I had the incredible good luck of bumping in two amazing men, one after the others, who taught me what respectful love and appreciation is. I will never thank them enough for what they did for me and to me.
I wish every woman could meet someone like that in their lives. It could be their father, their partner, a close friend. And I wish every woman would learn to react to oppressive, abusive men, instead of thinking that this person will change.
....but sometimes fortunately, people do learn how to improve this. A men could be unappreciative, but at the same time not trying to put the other person down or at least not often. If the person cares enough about the other, then there is room for improvement. It is a lot of work and it has a lot of ups and downs, but sometimes, it works. I experienced this. It is not easy and it does require a lot of work and patience, but sometimes it pays off.
None should put anyone else down to feel better about themselves.
None should allow to be put down by someone else.
I wish everyone would have next to them someone who makes them feeling precious and special and loved and appreciated every day for this.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Saturday, December 14, 2013
That's about it
Here we are. Last night in my apartment here in Portugal.
I feel miserably sad.
I had so many troubles with this apartment, the rain filtering inside the windows and flooding my kitchen, the bad landlord, the continuous reparations needed.
But I loved this place. The ocean view. The possibility to walk or run on the beach, next to the beach whenever I wanted.
And that's it. I am leaving. After tomorrow, very early in the morning.
I can't help but thinking of my mood and my hopes and all what was going on inside me when I arrived here two years ago. It seems yesterday, and instead it is not and so so many things happened in these two years.
When I arrived here, I was not even together with my husband. We had broken up since more than six months and I honestly didn't consider a reconciliation and getting back together a possibility, although we always stayed in touch.
When I arrived here, I thought that I would find a way to have at least a friendship with the olandesino. I couldn't have been wronger.
When I arrived here, I was terribly sad for having left my friend and the working group in Montpellier, but also full of hope for my life and my work here. I thought that I could make friends outside work and have a full life here. I sadly didn't make any close friends....I honestly didn't even try so hard, as it took me one year to figure out my life here and adapt and then I basically got engaged and knew I would move again. But I anyway met people I like a lot here and that in one or another way I will think about even from far.
Nothing went as I saw or imagined in my head, except for the fact that I already knew from the first time that I would have loved this little city where I decided to live.
I can't imagine myself starting over again, in another country, in another city. I don't know how many times I moved around from place to place and had to start over again. And every time, it takes me almost a year to just get settled in a place and even longer to start making friends and having a life...and then as in this case, it is time to leave again.
I feel that in the last months I am trying to block everything inside myself, the fear, the sadness, the anguishing of having to move again and start over in another place with another culture, other people, another life. I am tired of this. I was tired of this two years ago, when I came here in Portugal and I promised myself that I wouldn't move again unless was for something stable where I could settle for many years and have a life, with friends, routine, my things, where I could feel rooted.
Instead, two years after, all my stuff is in boxes again, spread between Italy, my husband's apartment, the future place where I will live, and somewhere in between these places, traveling.
I am fully aware that I didn't need this change again. I am also aware that it could never have worked between my husband and I if I would have stayed where I am. I guess that when I decided to marry him, I knew that I would have had to move again. Surely, I was hoping to move with him and not to move to be alone again in a new place, just closer to him. But I would never give up my work and I would never want him to give up what he has for me without something to do that he likes.
Someone told me that "I want it all" and this is just not possible in life.
I don't feel that I want it all. I don't have my family close to me and I don't have my friends near me.
I just have a job doing what I like (and I hope to like doing it in this new place and to find a pleasant working environment) and a husband closer by than now. I understand that it is a lot and much more that what other people have, but it is certainly not having it all and I made a lot of sacrifices for my work and my personal life.
I just know that I will miss here, this little village, the view I have from the windows of my apartment, running along the ocean, the wind and the waves...I will miss all this so so much.
I feel miserably sad.
I had so many troubles with this apartment, the rain filtering inside the windows and flooding my kitchen, the bad landlord, the continuous reparations needed.
But I loved this place. The ocean view. The possibility to walk or run on the beach, next to the beach whenever I wanted.
And that's it. I am leaving. After tomorrow, very early in the morning.
I can't help but thinking of my mood and my hopes and all what was going on inside me when I arrived here two years ago. It seems yesterday, and instead it is not and so so many things happened in these two years.
When I arrived here, I was not even together with my husband. We had broken up since more than six months and I honestly didn't consider a reconciliation and getting back together a possibility, although we always stayed in touch.
When I arrived here, I thought that I would find a way to have at least a friendship with the olandesino. I couldn't have been wronger.
When I arrived here, I was terribly sad for having left my friend and the working group in Montpellier, but also full of hope for my life and my work here. I thought that I could make friends outside work and have a full life here. I sadly didn't make any close friends....I honestly didn't even try so hard, as it took me one year to figure out my life here and adapt and then I basically got engaged and knew I would move again. But I anyway met people I like a lot here and that in one or another way I will think about even from far.
Nothing went as I saw or imagined in my head, except for the fact that I already knew from the first time that I would have loved this little city where I decided to live.
I can't imagine myself starting over again, in another country, in another city. I don't know how many times I moved around from place to place and had to start over again. And every time, it takes me almost a year to just get settled in a place and even longer to start making friends and having a life...and then as in this case, it is time to leave again.
I feel that in the last months I am trying to block everything inside myself, the fear, the sadness, the anguishing of having to move again and start over in another place with another culture, other people, another life. I am tired of this. I was tired of this two years ago, when I came here in Portugal and I promised myself that I wouldn't move again unless was for something stable where I could settle for many years and have a life, with friends, routine, my things, where I could feel rooted.
Instead, two years after, all my stuff is in boxes again, spread between Italy, my husband's apartment, the future place where I will live, and somewhere in between these places, traveling.
I am fully aware that I didn't need this change again. I am also aware that it could never have worked between my husband and I if I would have stayed where I am. I guess that when I decided to marry him, I knew that I would have had to move again. Surely, I was hoping to move with him and not to move to be alone again in a new place, just closer to him. But I would never give up my work and I would never want him to give up what he has for me without something to do that he likes.
Someone told me that "I want it all" and this is just not possible in life.
I don't feel that I want it all. I don't have my family close to me and I don't have my friends near me.
I just have a job doing what I like (and I hope to like doing it in this new place and to find a pleasant working environment) and a husband closer by than now. I understand that it is a lot and much more that what other people have, but it is certainly not having it all and I made a lot of sacrifices for my work and my personal life.
I just know that I will miss here, this little village, the view I have from the windows of my apartment, running along the ocean, the wind and the waves...I will miss all this so so much.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Decision taken.....was that a good decision?
Now it is about time to move and I am down here, where I will be moving, looking for a place.
I saw lizards, I saw birds, the weather is warm and I can go around just wearing a t-shirt, the trees are beautiful and the forests and nature look amazing.
But I can't find the way to be excited about moving. Every time I moved some place else, I always had mixed feeling about it, but I have always also been excited. This time, I do not seem to find a way to have one thing, at least just one thing, to look forward about this new change in life.
People tell me to look at this as at a new adventure.
Honestly? I don't need any adventure now.
People tell me to look at this as a moving forward in my career.
Honestly? how do I know that this will actually help me to move forward in my career?
People tell me that if it too bad, it can just be a temporary thing.
But honestly, why a temporary thing should not be enjoyable as well, especially at my age?
For sure work-wise I am not happy where I am right now and I have rain pouring in my apartment every time it rains, and I have my ex-boyfriend living next door and I have a lot of things for which I am not necessarily happy about and for sure a change was needed.
What bothers me is that I keep asking myself if this is really the change I needed......only time can answer to this.
I just wish I could find one thing to be excited about for this new life and to look forward to.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Rule #1: Blend in
I wear them since many years and I had them in many different colors. Every new pair, I try a new color combination out.
Last night, I was picking for a new color when I started thinking of where I will be living next. I wondered if it would be a really smart choice to have very colorful shoes, if it wouldn't be better to just wear something plain, something that it is not necessarily "me", but that most likely would help me to blend in more easily.
The thing is that no matter what I do or don't do and where I am, I find a way to stand out. I don't do it on purpose. I think I just have a strong, visible, personality. I dress in my own way, which stands out, no matter what. I had people commenting on the way I dress in every single country I lived. Mostly, because I love to combine colors. The way I dress and what I wear highly reflects my mood. And if my mood is down, I try anyway to put at least one thing with some colors to cheer me up. I love this, I love to express myself in this way. I love to be me.
I can adapt to a new country for many other things, but if I want to be in some state of mental stability, I need to be myself and not change the way I am to fit in in the country I am at that moment.
It worked well until now, except in one case. When I was living in the US last time. There, it was not so much the problem of standing out of the crowd for the way I dress, it was more a matter of feeling caged.
Don't go there, don't walk here, be careful with this, be careful with that.
For someone who often walks around with the head in the clouds like me, without actually worrying too much about the surrounding (I am not naive, I just live comfortably in the environment and enjoy it), the US way of living I experienced was a shock. I lacked my freedom of movement. I am most creative when I go for long walks and I let my mind wondering around, without paying any attention to details. I need to be creative for my work and for my mental health. I felt I couldn't do that there.
I am not negative about the US specifically. I am sure that in Roma or Milano, it is not safe either to behave this way. I have just never lived in a place like Roma or Milano. And in Montpellier, I felt that the city was dangerous, but at night, never during the day. So, there that was not an issue.
Now I am going to move to a state in the US where according to an article that I read recently (I don't remember if on the BBC or on the Guardian), they don't have any law about guns, and if they have any, it is so unclear that anyone does whatever he/she wants. Basically, you can walk around with any kind of gun, hidden or visible, you can carry it with you wherever you go, you can do anything you have in mind with it.
Guns for me put immediately the way of living all on another level. I am not used to them. I am not used to be in a place where guns are fairly normal. I am not used to live in a place where if someone for whatever reason has a bad day or doesn't like me or wants something I have, instead of simply attacking me or pointing a knife at my throat, can actually shot me dead.
You see? Freedom has all another meaning for me in a place where guns are allowed, free, and welcomed.
I know I should not be afraid. I know that violent crimes are not that common. The thing is that even if they are not common, they happen. And even if the chance of being shot dead or severely injured is 1 in a million, I definitively don't want to be that 1 person. The other day I read on the news of the city where I will move that a guy got shot dead in the middle of the day, in front of the post office, near downtown because someone wanted his bike.
Seriously? what are we back in the Far West? yes, it is not as bad as Pretoria, we agree on that, but still....for a bike? seriously? I am sure the guy would have given away his bike if threatened with a gun. No need to shoot him dead.
You see? that's my point. Blend in, blend in.
You don't want to have anything someone else may want. You don't want to attract any attention. You don't want to have colorful shoes.
I wish I had the cloth of invisibility of Harry Potter.
I am kind of freaking out for this. You can see that I am a bit obsessed with this. I keep writing about it.
I understand it doesn't help.
I just can't stand any kind of violence and I can't understand how people can get used to live in a place where every day someone can wake up in the wrong mood and feeling it is a good day to shoot someone dead.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Persistence, resilience, adaptability and crisis menagement
I was just reading an article on the National Geographic about the importance of failing and learning from it.
This year is my failure year, undoubtedly, in terms of work. I failed in supervising a MSc student, giving her way too much assistance and help, I failed in all the applications I sent to obtain some funding for the projects I would like to work on, and so on and so on....I definitively see this working year, 2013, as a huge failure.
Am I going to learn something from these failures? hopefully so....I especially hope to have learned A LOT from my frustrating experience with the MSc student I supervised, because she wore me out and sucked my energy and enthusiasm of having students this year.....My fault, absolutely.
In any case. The article I was reading was highly inspiring. And I especially loved two sentences in there. One is a citation from S. Beckett "Try again. Fail again. Fail better"
The other was "Persistence, resilience. Adaptability and crisis management. All are key themes in exploration, as in ordinary life. Keeping things in perspective helps too".
I certainly have persistence and resilience. I am not 100% sure about the other two things and especially about my capacity to keep things in perspective......maybe I will learn how to improve this short-coming of my character. I certainly hope to learn from the the various work failures of this year!
This year is my failure year, undoubtedly, in terms of work. I failed in supervising a MSc student, giving her way too much assistance and help, I failed in all the applications I sent to obtain some funding for the projects I would like to work on, and so on and so on....I definitively see this working year, 2013, as a huge failure.
Am I going to learn something from these failures? hopefully so....I especially hope to have learned A LOT from my frustrating experience with the MSc student I supervised, because she wore me out and sucked my energy and enthusiasm of having students this year.....My fault, absolutely.
In any case. The article I was reading was highly inspiring. And I especially loved two sentences in there. One is a citation from S. Beckett "Try again. Fail again. Fail better"
The other was "Persistence, resilience. Adaptability and crisis management. All are key themes in exploration, as in ordinary life. Keeping things in perspective helps too".
I certainly have persistence and resilience. I am not 100% sure about the other two things and especially about my capacity to keep things in perspective......maybe I will learn how to improve this short-coming of my character. I certainly hope to learn from the the various work failures of this year!
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Heading South
Mostly, I got married and I am moving South.
Not South of here (Portugal), but South of the USA. Another move, another life, another adventure.
I should report from there. I should have written more from here and about here.....but when life gets crazy, it is not easy to find the time to sit down and write....I rather prefer to go outside running and relaxing.
Despite this, I am ready to leave. Working here was a frustrating, unsuccessful experience and although life is not too bad, I have felt very lonely and disconnected. Plus, the olandesino living next door from me also doesn't help my peace of mind.
I should definitively take some pictures of the things/places I love here before leaving this place.....
I am scared and excited for this new change. Some days more scared, some days more excited.....
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
How much more difficult does it have to get?
The beach and the ocean. This is where I live now. This is what I have in front of my apartment and I see every day.
It is hard to think that I will have to leave this for an unknown place where to start a new life. But hopefully it will be a place where I will be able to have a life, as I am tired of traveling all the time and having no stability, making friends to leave them again after a couple of years, just when I get close to them. I am tired of feeling home in a place to have to leave it again. Since I decided to get engaged, my life is not here nor where my boyfriend is, in the USA. I am also very distant from everyone here, as I don't want to get attached and then have to suffer as it happened when I had to leave France. So, although I do not look forward to leave the place where I live now, which represents one of my dreams (living in front of the Ocean and being able to take long walks on the beach whenever I want), I also hope finally at the age of 37 to be able to have a life, live in a place that I can feel it is my home, get a dog with whom to share my long walks, possibly make some friends with whom I can share my life without being afraid of leaving them any time soon, and be closer to my boyfriend.
I got a new job and a new place ahead of me and although I am currently terrified for all those huge changes in my life and although last time I lived in the USA I ended up with a huge depression (and not for a joke, but a serious depression that last about three years), I try to keep a positive attitude toward it, especially focusing on the good things.
But the truth is that if it was not because it is easier to find a job for two people in the USA than in Europe and the fact that my boyfriend has a job that could actually help us even if my salary will be quite low (for American standards), I would rather live with him here in Europe than going to the USA. I have nothing against the USA and there are things I like and dislike of every country where I lived so far... so it is not that. But my family and friends are in Europe and I am deeply European in my way of living....I am actually perfectly fit for a small European town, like where I am now.
This to say that the coming change does actually cost me some mental effort to get used to it, I get immensely sad when I think that communicating and seeing my family will be much harder than now (I keep wondering if they will visit me and how often we will see each other considering how much a flight ticket costs), and it costs me some work to stay focused on the positive things. But I manage. Some days are better some less good...but I manage. Until I get under a pile of difficulties like today.
To make a long story short. My boyfriend is American. I am Italian. I have much more flexibility in my job than him. He has very little holidays. He has a better job stability than me. It is easier to get a job for me in the USA than for him in Europe. I cannot stay in the USA on a tourist visa for more than 90 days over a year. It is much easier to get a permanent position there if I am either already in the USA on a working VISA or if we are married.
From all this, the decisions that followed thinking that our relationship would be easier.
September last year, my boyfriend and I contacted the consulate in Florence to ask information about green card, immigration procedure, etc. What we got told was that basically once we were married, getting a green card for a spouse would be easy and that while I could not live permanently in the USA without a green card or an immigrant visa, I could travel while waiting for the green card back and forth with my passport and on a tourist visa.
What instead we found out today was that if I apply for an immigration visa, I CANNOT travel to the USA. This to prevent that while people are waiting for the green card approval, they become illegal immigrants.This actually has nothing to do with immigration offices, it is something enforced by the border patrols....it doesn't matter if I can demonstrate that I am traveling to visit my husband but that I have a job somewhere else for now to which I want and I need to get back....no, no, no....I may be a potential illegal immigrant. I understand that they cannot make a special case for everyone, but how ridiculous is that I get married and then I cannot see my husband for how long it takes to get a green card (which may take more than 7 months), unless he comes to visit me?
Not only.....even more stupid....the place where I got offered the job would not request a working visa for me (which is much quicker to get and would make our lives much easier) because I previously told them that I would apply for a green card after the wedding....so, now they told me to apply for the green card and if I don't get it by the end of October, then and only then they will apply for a working visa for me, hoping that it will be done by the time I would need to start my job.....
Gosh, all this is so frustrating....how difficult does it have to be to just want to be in the same place as my boyfriend???? and plus...I am really sick of feeling rejected all the time because "I am not American or I am already a legal immigrant in the USA" ...first I had this for the numerous job applications I sent, then some of the members of my boyfriend family made me feel not good enough because not American (or not from a civilized enough place because it is not the USA), and now this immigration crap....................................
and a friend of mine just told me that her cousin got a green card for the USA through the green card lottery...............COME ON!!!!!!!!!!! are you kidding me? I have a job, I will have a husband there and I cannot even enter the country while applying for a green card.
gosh, gosh, gosh.....
Monday, May 13, 2013
Quality of life
I am a spoiled girl. There is no doubt about this.
I live in front of the ocean. I work whenever I want at the time I want where I want. I travel. I have people who love me a lot. I have traveled to a lot of places, I have seen and known a lot of different parts of the world, met many interesting people, done many things already. I am healthy. I have a wonderful family. I know what it means to deeply love and be loved by someone. I have the job I wanted to do. My job is actually one of my passions.
I am lucky. And I know this. Despite being angry or down or feeling lost, I know that overall I have a fantastic life, I had so far an amazing life.
I am lucky and I am spoiled. Right now, I live in a total status of freedom. I live alone, I have no kids, no schedule, none depending on me. I count on my own capacities and myself. And I like it. I actually love it. But things are about to change. Not necessarily for something bad. But they will change. Commitment is at the door, in my personal and working life. I feel terrified. Petrified if I think about it. I feel I want to run away and hide on a beach somewhere (I actually exactly know where. I have been there once and that place since then represent my mental escape).
What terrifies me most is not the change itself. I am used to changing continuously: places, cultures, people. What terrifies me is to lose things that I now give for granted and are part of my routine. Running whenever I feel like around the ocean, walking to the bakery to buy fresh bread, walking around at any time of the day I want.
I have to move again and overall this next step, this next change of scenario is for good. I am getting married soon and I know that to make it work, we cannot have an ocean in between us. So, I am moving back to the USA and I am lucky enough to have found the job I wanted there. In this economy, this is definitively not something little. So far, so good.
But. I started this blog when I was living in the USA, about six years ago. I can't remember an unhappier, more depressing period in my life so far. I actually started this blog because I was so depressed, so lonely, so hopeless that the only thing that made me feel connected in some way was writing my thoughts, my feelings. I am scared of ending up in the same way. Is this a stupid fear? maybe.
The thing is that I like the USA. But there are also things of the USA that I really do not like. Last night I got to think about naming three things I hate about the USA. I didn't have to think very long:
1) Free guns
2) Need of having a car
3) Waste
Of course, I can also as easily think of three things I hate about Italy:
1) Corruption
2) Lack of a national spirit
3) Superficiality
And so on, I could list three things I hate about France, about Portugal, about Germany, probably about any of the countries where I have been living. However, not all these things I hate weight the same in terms of my quality of life and I deal extremely badly with the idea of living in a country where guns are legal. It makes me feel threatened all the time. It is not my culture. I am not used to that. Yes, European cities are dangerous too. I completely agree. But they are in a different way. There are dangerous parts of the city and you just don't go there. In the USA often is not only a part of a city, it is one street is safe and the next street is dangerous. Why? who knows why. Plus, you never know, but the person walking in front of you may have a gun, as well as your neighbor, as well as basically anyone else. So, some of the things that for me make my quality of life good, which are the possibility to walk or take public transportation anywhere I want to go without needing a car, the sense of freedom in time and space, getting fresh bread when I feel like, are all going to be lost with my next life change. Because I am not going to move to any of the American/more European life style cities.
I can deal with a lot of things, I can adapt fairly easily to different cultures, I can always find my own dimension in a new place. But living in a country where guns are free and owning a gun is the normality is not something I want to adapt to. When I discuss this with Americans, the reply to my questions I receive more often is that guns are necessary to defend ourselves from the ones who already have a gun.....it doesn't take an extraordinary IQ to understand that this is a circular explanation that will never solve itself. If guns would be under regulation, meaning that people owning a gun has to declare it and that from now on buying a gun would be permitted only in special cases, there would be less uncontrolled guns around, and less crazy people who get the chance to use them and to assault, shoot and kill people just because they are having a bad day.....
Unfortunately, there are so many personal interests in the USA in keeping things the way they are when it comes to guns (or public transportation, or public health system just to name a few things) that the poor Obama will never manage to regulate them. Unfortunately. Because people do not have the chance to understand and appreciate the value of freedom of movement and existence without feeling that you gotta own a gun to defend yourself from others who may threaten you.
When I was living in Germany I used to often work late at night. Late night means that sometimes I would bike back home at 2-3am. Often, I would bike at that time through the forest. I always felt that I could have biked through the forest at that time at night completely naked and nothing would have happened to me. Of course, there may always be the bad luck of meeting a bad guy. This happens everywhere. But if a bad guy doesn't not have a gun, first thing he has to get close to me to assault me, second thing at least it will cost him more effort to harm or kill me.....it is a small consolation, but it does reduce the chances to get severely harmed or killed.
Statistics at hand......
I wish I would know how to make a difference and help to ban free guns in the USA, which will be my future home place.
Just to stay on this subject.....this happened just a few days ago and these episodes keep happening over and over in the USA.
I live in front of the ocean. I work whenever I want at the time I want where I want. I travel. I have people who love me a lot. I have traveled to a lot of places, I have seen and known a lot of different parts of the world, met many interesting people, done many things already. I am healthy. I have a wonderful family. I know what it means to deeply love and be loved by someone. I have the job I wanted to do. My job is actually one of my passions.
I am lucky. And I know this. Despite being angry or down or feeling lost, I know that overall I have a fantastic life, I had so far an amazing life.
I am lucky and I am spoiled. Right now, I live in a total status of freedom. I live alone, I have no kids, no schedule, none depending on me. I count on my own capacities and myself. And I like it. I actually love it. But things are about to change. Not necessarily for something bad. But they will change. Commitment is at the door, in my personal and working life. I feel terrified. Petrified if I think about it. I feel I want to run away and hide on a beach somewhere (I actually exactly know where. I have been there once and that place since then represent my mental escape).
What terrifies me most is not the change itself. I am used to changing continuously: places, cultures, people. What terrifies me is to lose things that I now give for granted and are part of my routine. Running whenever I feel like around the ocean, walking to the bakery to buy fresh bread, walking around at any time of the day I want.
I have to move again and overall this next step, this next change of scenario is for good. I am getting married soon and I know that to make it work, we cannot have an ocean in between us. So, I am moving back to the USA and I am lucky enough to have found the job I wanted there. In this economy, this is definitively not something little. So far, so good.
But. I started this blog when I was living in the USA, about six years ago. I can't remember an unhappier, more depressing period in my life so far. I actually started this blog because I was so depressed, so lonely, so hopeless that the only thing that made me feel connected in some way was writing my thoughts, my feelings. I am scared of ending up in the same way. Is this a stupid fear? maybe.
The thing is that I like the USA. But there are also things of the USA that I really do not like. Last night I got to think about naming three things I hate about the USA. I didn't have to think very long:
1) Free guns
2) Need of having a car
3) Waste
Of course, I can also as easily think of three things I hate about Italy:
1) Corruption
2) Lack of a national spirit
3) Superficiality
And so on, I could list three things I hate about France, about Portugal, about Germany, probably about any of the countries where I have been living. However, not all these things I hate weight the same in terms of my quality of life and I deal extremely badly with the idea of living in a country where guns are legal. It makes me feel threatened all the time. It is not my culture. I am not used to that. Yes, European cities are dangerous too. I completely agree. But they are in a different way. There are dangerous parts of the city and you just don't go there. In the USA often is not only a part of a city, it is one street is safe and the next street is dangerous. Why? who knows why. Plus, you never know, but the person walking in front of you may have a gun, as well as your neighbor, as well as basically anyone else. So, some of the things that for me make my quality of life good, which are the possibility to walk or take public transportation anywhere I want to go without needing a car, the sense of freedom in time and space, getting fresh bread when I feel like, are all going to be lost with my next life change. Because I am not going to move to any of the American/more European life style cities.
I can deal with a lot of things, I can adapt fairly easily to different cultures, I can always find my own dimension in a new place. But living in a country where guns are free and owning a gun is the normality is not something I want to adapt to. When I discuss this with Americans, the reply to my questions I receive more often is that guns are necessary to defend ourselves from the ones who already have a gun.....it doesn't take an extraordinary IQ to understand that this is a circular explanation that will never solve itself. If guns would be under regulation, meaning that people owning a gun has to declare it and that from now on buying a gun would be permitted only in special cases, there would be less uncontrolled guns around, and less crazy people who get the chance to use them and to assault, shoot and kill people just because they are having a bad day.....
Unfortunately, there are so many personal interests in the USA in keeping things the way they are when it comes to guns (or public transportation, or public health system just to name a few things) that the poor Obama will never manage to regulate them. Unfortunately. Because people do not have the chance to understand and appreciate the value of freedom of movement and existence without feeling that you gotta own a gun to defend yourself from others who may threaten you.
When I was living in Germany I used to often work late at night. Late night means that sometimes I would bike back home at 2-3am. Often, I would bike at that time through the forest. I always felt that I could have biked through the forest at that time at night completely naked and nothing would have happened to me. Of course, there may always be the bad luck of meeting a bad guy. This happens everywhere. But if a bad guy doesn't not have a gun, first thing he has to get close to me to assault me, second thing at least it will cost him more effort to harm or kill me.....it is a small consolation, but it does reduce the chances to get severely harmed or killed.
Statistics at hand......
I wish I would know how to make a difference and help to ban free guns in the USA, which will be my future home place.
Just to stay on this subject.....this happened just a few days ago and these episodes keep happening over and over in the USA.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Anger, so much anger
When I started writing this blog, it was therapeutic. I didn't know with whom to talk in a comfortable way, I didn't want to bother anyone with the same things over and over and so I started writing. Then, I started to feel better about my life and the blog turned out to be more a together or random thoughts and observations. Then in the last months, I didn't have time to write and I didn't feel like either, because I was just going through too much in my life.
Now I am back to this old friend. Because, although I am not in the same status and condition as when I first started this blog, I am also not a good place in my life either. In the last months I had and still have to make so many life-decisions for things that I would never do or accept if it was just about me. But when you get engaged to someone and deciding to marrying someone, then it is not anymore about "you" or "me" but it about what to do to make it work in the best possible way. And it is one compromise after the other and it is scary.....it is scary because to be with that one person, I have a prospect of life with many things that I would have never even considered if it was just about me. Moving to a place that on paper may be wonderful as well as it could be hell, leaving the peace of the ocean and the safety of where I am now, accepting the baggage that comes with him (and for which he has no fault or responsibility) even if it is extremely unpleasant, be even more far away from my family, feeling that I have no place in the world no matter where I am because my life is all in pieces here and there.
It is months now that I am struggling and the only way I can cope with this is running and walking, walking and running. I escape social contacts because I am so angry and feeling uncomfortable all the time that nothing makes me aggressive and exploding....with the result that I am becoming socially awkward. Four-five months ago, I was positive, optimist and seeing the same things as adventurous challenges. Now I am just tired of all the difficulties that comes with the already per-se difficult decision I had to take.....I feel I can't take any more... it is already too much....why do things need to be so difficult sometimes? all over....not just my working life is difficult.....and I don't know how to get out of this and I don't want to talk to people about this, because overall is very boring and people are just different and would see my overall situation in a very different way, so none can actually advice me on anything...and if I would talk about this with my family, they would just get worried and if I would talk about this with my fiance' (although I do it), he would feel responsible and guilty, when he actually has no responsabilities....
I just feel that I have to do what I have to do and hope for the best....but it is not really a good way to approach things for me....I wish I could be more enthusiastic....but the past months and events really killed my enthusiasm for all these things.....
Now I am back to this old friend. Because, although I am not in the same status and condition as when I first started this blog, I am also not a good place in my life either. In the last months I had and still have to make so many life-decisions for things that I would never do or accept if it was just about me. But when you get engaged to someone and deciding to marrying someone, then it is not anymore about "you" or "me" but it about what to do to make it work in the best possible way. And it is one compromise after the other and it is scary.....it is scary because to be with that one person, I have a prospect of life with many things that I would have never even considered if it was just about me. Moving to a place that on paper may be wonderful as well as it could be hell, leaving the peace of the ocean and the safety of where I am now, accepting the baggage that comes with him (and for which he has no fault or responsibility) even if it is extremely unpleasant, be even more far away from my family, feeling that I have no place in the world no matter where I am because my life is all in pieces here and there.
It is months now that I am struggling and the only way I can cope with this is running and walking, walking and running. I escape social contacts because I am so angry and feeling uncomfortable all the time that nothing makes me aggressive and exploding....with the result that I am becoming socially awkward. Four-five months ago, I was positive, optimist and seeing the same things as adventurous challenges. Now I am just tired of all the difficulties that comes with the already per-se difficult decision I had to take.....I feel I can't take any more... it is already too much....why do things need to be so difficult sometimes? all over....not just my working life is difficult.....and I don't know how to get out of this and I don't want to talk to people about this, because overall is very boring and people are just different and would see my overall situation in a very different way, so none can actually advice me on anything...and if I would talk about this with my family, they would just get worried and if I would talk about this with my fiance' (although I do it), he would feel responsible and guilty, when he actually has no responsabilities....
I just feel that I have to do what I have to do and hope for the best....but it is not really a good way to approach things for me....I wish I could be more enthusiastic....but the past months and events really killed my enthusiasm for all these things.....
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Life changes
So long that I don't write here.
So many things happened in my life in the last months.
So many different emotional states: stress, happiness, excitement, being scared, freaking out, sadness, anger (lot of it), more stress, feeling lonely......I don't even know from where to start.
Maybe from the fact that things in life, at least in my life for sure, never happen when they are supposed to happen or when I wish they would happen or in the way I would like them to happen. I constantly feel like being at the right place at the wrong time.
I can't have things figured out. Even when I think I do. I just rest thinking that wow even if in a weird and unexpected way things are turning out quite well, when suddenly something new comes up to mess everything around again.
It may be considered a good thing, sure. But sometimes I also feel that it wouldn't be bad to have a vision for a bit longer than just the current day.
Since November I have been traveling between Ecuador, the USA, Italy, Portugal, France and in a few days I will be in Holland and then in the USA again.
I have applied to many many jobs and I also received many many rejections.
I have hoped and get crashed and hoped again.
I have been excited and miserable and excited again and miserable again for the same thing over and over in the past three months.
Part of me would like to learn how to be immune to other people. Part of me would like to learn to not care so much. Part of me would like to learn to not be polite when people do not deserve politeness, when they are not nice to me, my country, my family, or my culture. Part of me would like to learn how to be able to still be positive when surrounded by a tick layer of negativity that oppresses everything and makes everything grey.
I have a lot of beautiful things happening to me and in my life. But there is always something or someone who feels the need to ruin everything, to make things more difficult than they are so that they become an unbearable wall.
Sometimes I feel that it doesn't really matter what I do or I don't do, because things keep happening on their own, because life is just this way, and the only thing I can do is to try to get the best out of all these things, no matter how hard other people only try to make me see only the negative aspects on any of these things.
It is really not the way I am, or at least I have never been this way before. It may be a change due to aging or it may have something to do with the fact that some days I am really tired of thinking over and over about this, but I often find myself taking a decision more on "why not?" than based on over-thinking as it usually was.
Not that the end product of the two different modes of action is any different anyway.
I have been proposed. And I accepted.
And someone tried very hard to kill all the enthusiasm and expectation I had for it.
And I felt lonely and rejected.
I waited for something to happen for years. And when it did happen it was completely the worst possible timing.
I received a job offer for a job that overall I thought it would be cool. Not perfect, not ideal, but overall cool.
And someone tried his best to make me see only the negative aspects of it and how it will only make my life even more solitary.
It must be the yin and the yang. Nothing can be just good or just bad.....it must always be something in between apparently......at least in my life lately.
So many things happened in my life in the last months.
So many different emotional states: stress, happiness, excitement, being scared, freaking out, sadness, anger (lot of it), more stress, feeling lonely......I don't even know from where to start.
Maybe from the fact that things in life, at least in my life for sure, never happen when they are supposed to happen or when I wish they would happen or in the way I would like them to happen. I constantly feel like being at the right place at the wrong time.
I can't have things figured out. Even when I think I do. I just rest thinking that wow even if in a weird and unexpected way things are turning out quite well, when suddenly something new comes up to mess everything around again.
It may be considered a good thing, sure. But sometimes I also feel that it wouldn't be bad to have a vision for a bit longer than just the current day.
Since November I have been traveling between Ecuador, the USA, Italy, Portugal, France and in a few days I will be in Holland and then in the USA again.
I have applied to many many jobs and I also received many many rejections.
I have hoped and get crashed and hoped again.
I have been excited and miserable and excited again and miserable again for the same thing over and over in the past three months.
Part of me would like to learn how to be immune to other people. Part of me would like to learn to not care so much. Part of me would like to learn to not be polite when people do not deserve politeness, when they are not nice to me, my country, my family, or my culture. Part of me would like to learn how to be able to still be positive when surrounded by a tick layer of negativity that oppresses everything and makes everything grey.
I have a lot of beautiful things happening to me and in my life. But there is always something or someone who feels the need to ruin everything, to make things more difficult than they are so that they become an unbearable wall.
Sometimes I feel that it doesn't really matter what I do or I don't do, because things keep happening on their own, because life is just this way, and the only thing I can do is to try to get the best out of all these things, no matter how hard other people only try to make me see only the negative aspects on any of these things.
It is really not the way I am, or at least I have never been this way before. It may be a change due to aging or it may have something to do with the fact that some days I am really tired of thinking over and over about this, but I often find myself taking a decision more on "why not?" than based on over-thinking as it usually was.
Not that the end product of the two different modes of action is any different anyway.
I have been proposed. And I accepted.
And someone tried very hard to kill all the enthusiasm and expectation I had for it.
And I felt lonely and rejected.
I waited for something to happen for years. And when it did happen it was completely the worst possible timing.
I received a job offer for a job that overall I thought it would be cool. Not perfect, not ideal, but overall cool.
And someone tried his best to make me see only the negative aspects of it and how it will only make my life even more solitary.
It must be the yin and the yang. Nothing can be just good or just bad.....it must always be something in between apparently......at least in my life lately.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
