Scared

So the last few weeks, I've had a lot on my mind, besides the normal worries of school, and trying not to beat myself up for throwing caution to the wind to go to Stuttgart again. Let's face it: I'm damn determined to meet Gil Ofarim, so I'm going to. LOL. I just have to behave myself from here til August (essentially). I've never been a good moneyhandler, so now that I've fallen on my ass once, let's see how I can figure to NOT do that again.

But anyway, that's not my main fear. It's up there, but the fears I'm thinking of are much more conceptual.

I'm scared of going home.

Now, that sounds weird, I know. It feels weird. And it's not this anti-America, boo patriotism thing. It really has little to do with it (there are things politically that frustrate me, for sure, but I don't want to go into that). It's more the ideas affiliated with going back home.

I'm scared of speaking English, and not having to translate almost everything I say/and or flip between languages. I'm scared of familiarity. I'm scared of the problems I have to go back to. I'm scared of not being able to make it at home. I'm scared of readjusting/reverse culture shock. I'm scared of having to deal with the crap I shrugged off 6 months ago, as my plane took off for Detroit.

I'm not just scared, I'm terrified.

I've been in France going on 7 months. A lot of good, and a lot of bad has happened. A lot of shit has happened, mainly being conned/lied to once again. I've screwed up financially/was taken advantage of, and borderlined starved. I've been lonely, angry, and felt abandoned. I've had to adjust to Euros, metric, French, German, and being the stranger.

But, I've met some wonderful friends here, had some inspiring moments, learned about myself as a person, been forced to grow up (finally), had to figure out things, learn things, have come to understand things, about life, history, political theory (I mean it is l'Institut des Etudes Politiques hahaha), culture, and so on. I've seen the good and the bad (or at least confusing) nuances of difference between my and a foreign culture. I've dyed my hair black, lost weight, and still love Disney Princesses. I've filled up my Adventure Book (if you've seen the movie, Up, you know what I mean). I've found out who my friends back home REALLY are, and I've discovered who the lying bitch is.

I never would've done any of this had I not come here.

That's why going home scares me so much. For the first time in my life, I'm alive. I'm real. I'm not just looking wistfully from the outside in, wanting to be a part, I AM what's happening. I am learning, living, seeing, experiencing, feeling, hurting, hoping, worrying, thinking, excited, bewildered, fascinated, bemused...the list of adjectives that I feel on a daily basis is enormous. I don't think I still can entirely understand it all.

This is the first time I've been able to feel this way. It's the first time I've been able to live my life this way, and live for myself, and influence my own destiny, and not have a tyrant or a liar trying to turn my future into what they want out of me, or using me to get what they want. I'm living for ME. And all that it entails.

And that's yet another reason going home scares me. It's going back to where all that bad is. it means facing it all again. Not even just facing it really, as much as, that's where it exists. All the bad--I mean REAL bad, not just bad days and minor frustrations--has happened. Everyone and everything I hate about life, is in Fort Wayne. That's not saying life is all bad, or being pessimistic, like i'm oh-so-very-good at doing, it just means that the bad parts of life are all concentrated in one area for me.

But I've known since I got here I HAVE to go back. I have to finish what I started. I have to see things out to the end. It sucks...it REALLY fucking sucks, but I have to do it. As my "little sister" Kim put it, "you've been on a long vacation, and you have to go back to reality eventually." One of those moments where, no matter how hard I fought...they're right.

Anyway, I need a nap. LOL. 4 and a half hours of sleep last night. I never sleep on Sunday.