Being Displaced

What's one easy way for me to tell that I'm growing older? I actually get homesick now.

Ever since I was born, (with the exception, for the most part, of the summer after I graduated from high school) I have not spent a single summer at home. Every summer from the age of seven until I was seventeen, I have gone to at least one summer camp, if not two. The other parts of the summer were spent either travelling or at the home my grandparents would rent for the summer in the Poconos. I was home maybe for two weeks after school let out and two weeks before school started again.

And you know what? I loved it. I loved not being home for the summer - sure, as I grew older, I was upset about not seeing my friends, but I grew used to it and accepted that I would spend the summer away while they all got to stay home and enjoy each other's company without the pressure of schoolwork. I loved being able to do and learn new things at summer camp, see new places, go swimming, and not be stuck in a house in the suburbs with absolutely nothing to do. At least I could be stuck with nothing to do in the Poconos, where there was a lake. I needed time away from the suburbs so that by the time summer was finally over, I didn't mind being there so much.

But now that I've gone off to college, I don't live at home for ten straight months. And while at college I have enough to keep me busy that I don't often miss home, spending the majority of my summer an ocean away hits a little hard sometimes. I wouldn't trade my experiences studying abroad for the summer for the world, but sometimes it hits me that I miss home. I miss my friends that I left behind, I miss my dog, and I miss not having to worry about the fact that everything is slightly more expensive since it's in Euros. I even feel a little displaced, because I don't really have a permanent home right now, especially since my parents have moved. I have my parents' house and my dorm room, but my parents' house is no longer the house I grew up in and my dorm room is only stable for a school year, before I move out again.

I'll admit I think too much about my life objectively, where I'm living and how it pertains to how I feel at the current moment, but it was nice being a kid. Being so glad to be out of the house for two months and not missing a single moment of it. Now I kind of wish I had a stable home that I knew I would be coming back to. I guess now that I'm growing up I just have to make my own home.

Living Abroad

For the last six weeks, I have been living in Galway, Ireland. It's an absolutely amazing experience to live in a different country - to experience the different culture, traditions, music, and languages. But at the same time there's something really plain about the whole situation. Yes, it's not America, and in some way the differences are obvious, but in a lot of ways after a while it doesn't even matter anymore. Whether I was living in Galway or New York City or any other city, there's something inherently similar about all of these places after a while.

It may be the process of settling into a routine. Sure, on the weekends my friends and I will go sightseeing or to the museum, and experience the local pubs. We'll go do touristy things, and it's a lot of fun. But during the week, life is a little more routine. We go to class, we go to our internships, we work, come home, make dinner, and work some more or just relax at home. It's the kind of routine I could have no matter where I'd be studying. Sure, it's not like that every night, but a lot of the times it just isn't feasible to go to a pub or stay out too long when you have a 9 am class the next morning.

There's nothing wrong with settling into a routine - it's comforting, predictable. But it's not exciting, and some days I feel like I should be out in the city, doing something reckless and unpredictable, even though I would definitely regret it come morning. I would not pass up the experience of living abroad for the world, but living in a city is not quite the same as if I had found myself in the middle of rural Ireland, having to help farm every day and being truly disconnected from the world. The best way to experience new things is to jump completely out of your comfort zone, but that's so difficult to do that it's easier to have a more passive exploration, with some comforts that never really change. 

Let me take another shot at this...

In an effort to spread myself as far and wide across the Internet as possible (because why not?), I'm taking another shot at having a normal, proper blog. One not alternating text with random quotes and images, as my Tumblr does, but just a straight up text-based blog (for the most part), just with my thoughts.

What will I write here? I'm not sure yet. Considering that I write several times a day (between various social networks and private journals), I'm not sure how copious this'll be. But I sincerely hope that you'll find this entertaining and decide to stick around, maybe take a chance with what I've got to say.

Also, intro posts are always annoying to write. You're here! Hello! I hope you stick around, but I completely understand if you don't. I'm in a million other places as well, so I'm sure we'll meet on the web in one way or another. Thanks for reading!