Settler

I cannot believe it’s already April 5th. I just bought another month’s worth of internet from Megafon. I will have to buy another month for my gym membership after tomorrow. We are spending this upcoming weekend in Pskov, and then in a few weeks, we’re off to Moscow. Although the two months we have left here is still a long time, I am starting to worry about leaving. They’re silly, premature thoughts of course, but I know, oh how I KNOW, that it’ll be time to go home before we know it. I was talking with some friends last night about eventually leaving each other and how we’ll try to stay in touch as best we can (wine certainly helped us get all sappy and mushy-gushy, that's for sure). Wow, that sounds so sad, but that’s because it IS really sad. On so many levels we’re all still somewhat strangers to each other; we’ve only known each other for a little over two months. On the other hand, however, these past two months that we have know each other haven’t been your average two months spent away at college. There is a lot to be said about the bond between those who struggle to communicate in a foreign language on a daily basis. And don’t even get me started on our language classes. I wholeheartedly believe that we all have achieved a different type of friendship by how much time we’ve spent in classes together, making absolute fools out of ourselves. If you were a fly on the wall during any of our phonetics classes enough to catch glimpses of us with our tongues out and mouths in weird positions, or to hear us “coo” and “BLeaH” in order to correctly pronounce Russian letters, sounds, and full words. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’ve all been going through these weird, priceless experiences since getting here, and I believe that whether we know it or not, we’re grown highly attached to each other, to these other young American students who understand what it’s like to say da or nyet to questions without knowing exactly what was asked, or who understand how difficult it can be to get from point A to B, to buy a bottle of water, to take public transportation, etc... 

I really hate change. I know it can be good, and there is a huge part of me that welcomes it with open arms, but I am most comfortable when I’m in a familiar environment. For example, I was beyond excited to graduate from Waynflete and move on to college. There was no doubt about that, but one of the hardest parts was leaving the people I had been surrounded by for my whole life. How do you just do that? You say that you’ll keep in touch, and that you’ll always have memories, but that is still so depressing to me. I want to move on through my life and to create awesome experiences for myself, but I hate the fact that in doing so I can’t take everybody with me. Of course, there are some people I’m glad have left my life. There are a few I hope I never have to see again (you have a few of your own, don’t lie), but these people that I’ve met and spent time with here in Petersburg are ones I sincerely wish never leave my life. That is undoubtedly impossible. As much as I wish it weren’t true, I will not keep in touch with most of the people once we leave and get back to our lives. I guess the next best thing would be to hope that they stay in my memory. 

Jeez, how did I get so gloomy all of a sudden? I don’t mean to be. I think I’m just simply starting to become more aware of how fast time is going by here, and that as time is picking up speed, I find myself loving this city more and more. Do you ever have moments where you’re outside, walking somewhere by yourself, and you look around and know with absolute certainty that you love where you are right in that moment? I’ve been feeling that more and more often lately. It always hits me when I leave Vasilievsky island and walk towards and over the bridge on my way to Smolny. I’ve felt more at peace with myself lately over the past few weeks, and that has translated to something along the lines of contentment and happiness. This joy and comfort that I feel comes in waves, but for the past few weeks, I’ve been consistently in a good mood. I’ve been here long enough to have created a little nest for myself, and I’m afraid to leave it. Ok, I know I’ll be escatic to go back home in June, but I know that I'll also be incredibly nervous. The nest building will have to start all over again. Part of me is scared to return back to the states because I have created a whole list of expectations of who I am supposed to be when I get back. I didn’t intentionally make this list, I just gradually noticed that these have been my expectations. I’m supposed to be noticeably better at Russian. I’m supposed to feel a lot more mature and cultured after having lived abroad for four and a half months. I’m supposed to be more independent and confident. I’m supposed to have stopped feeling depressed about my ex-boyfriend. I’m supposed to be more aware of who I am... But what if I don’t feel like I’ve completed any of this? I believe that I should come back stronger in so many regards, but as time is going by so fast, I feel like it’s not giving me enough room to grow and become the person I had intended to become at the end of this spring semester. I’m hoping that I’m just so lost in everything that’s going on here that it’s impossible for me to tell that I will have accomplished more than I think I have by the end of all this. 

Well, that wasn’t what this blog post was supposed to be about. I wanted to write about how frustrated I’ve become with Russian society’s sexist disposition, but I guess I can save those comments for another angry blog post. 

But guys, I feel like this post is particularly dark and personal. With that said, I feel the need to emphasize that I SWEAR I’M STILL HAVING A BLAST! Don’t worry about me over here :)