European Glasses

***This post is less up-beat and much more personal than my other posts. Please don't be alarmed or upset if it seems sad to you. Sadness is a part of coping and this blog is meant to show the reality of my experience in it's entirety. ***

Sometimes I feel like I'm on the outside looking in. You know that feeling? When everyone seems to be a part of some big event or emotion except you, and for some reason you can't quite get to where they are. Locked doors, closed hearts, different interests.

When I got off the plane it seemed like everyone was handed a pair of brand-new, rose-colored glasses. We all smiled until our cheeks hurt and loved every nuance of France. We were taking photos at every opportunity and eating delicious meals every night. Somehow, someway, I lost my glasses early on. Sat them down on the top of the Bastille or dropped them in the road when I was running to catch the tram. Everyone else kept theirs closely guarded but me....I've always been a little clumsy with loosing small but important things.

Here at the end of my trip I'm dragging, watching everyone else begin to tear up as they realize fully that they are leaving. Everyone is sad and hesitant to do the very thing that I've been waiting months for. The more time I spend here the more disenchanted I become whereas everyone else fell more and more in love. How can it be that I was so ready three months ago to go and live this "dream" of mine? How can it be that I was eager to leave my home behind and embrace this place with all my heart? I had been so certain that I would love it here. It never crossed my mind for an instant that France could let me down. But was it France that let me down...or myself?

 When I sit and think about my feelings and realize that it's not the place that isn't what I dreamed it would be. It's me. I did not make the countless friends I thought I would make, or see the many things I thought I would see. My French did not improve as it should have and at the end of it all I feel so disappointed in myself. So many back at home are proud of the "difficult" thing that I have done but I am not. I feel like I failed at something vitally important to me.

What does it mean to be the girl who falls in love with the idea of things but once she has them finds she does not love them at all? Constant disappointment? If I cannot come to love the place that I am in, and only look to get to the next stop on my road in hopes that it will be better, I know I will never arrive at happiness. But how can I force myself to be happy when I am not? And once I do reach happiness, how do I stay content but not have it evolve into placidity? I fear more than most things, contentment with a menial, trivial life without adventure or extraordinary happenings. (Although sometimes I feel choosing that path may be easier.)

Still, though, I think of other things. I would tell everyone I know to go and study abroad. I would take this journey again and again, and each time do something differently. I can't decide if this disappointment truly means I've failed, or if it serves me better as fuel to my fiery determination. I didn't accomplish what I wanted to but I will come back again. I will try again and again until I can keep my glasses firmly placed and say that I am happy.

I envy those who sigh and say that they will miss it here. I find that it would be far better to be sad because you will miss a place than it is to be sad that you cannot miss it at all.