The day has come...again! I turn away from Germany, hoping that this time it will be the last time. However, I have become thoroughly disillusioned with hopes and dreams and, cosequently, know I probably won't be that lucky. Over the last few years I earned a little bit of a reputation for being dramatic, and most of my readers will put this off as an over-dramatic attempt to hate on Germany one last time while in reality this is the most heartfelt entry I could imagine. To me it's not a dramatization of my feelings but how I seriously feel, and it actually affects me in the ways I will address now.
About three years ago I made a few life decisions that would guarantee my way to success. I worked harder than most people my entire life, maybe not sitting in the library, but on myself. I had to go through quite a bit of hardship when I was younger that I felt like I could achieve anything. My whole life I was convinced I am a strong person that would achieve extraordinary things. One decision I made about this time last year destroyed all of that. I only regret that decision because the alternative to the successful life I had planned has brought about the total opposite.
Never has a plan I made really worked out but I was okay with the outcome anyways. I cannot find any positives in turning down a phd offer I desperately wanted for years to become unemployed for months, living with my mother, and worst of all, empty inside. A very unqualified doctor I had spoken to for three minutes diagnosed me with depression a few years ago, and I know today that it was the most wrong diagnosis ever: I am not depressed! I am actually far from it. I am disappointed that I have worked so hard to make ALL my dreams come true and NONE of them actually do. Instead, the things I wanted in life least happened. Disappointment is not a condition, it's a reality!
While I am thankful I have the opportunity to go to Egypt it is about the last thing I wanted. Since my sister lives in Egypt I sometimes considered if I envy my sister at all for the life she is living, as we sometimes do. The answer was that I wouldn't trade with her if they paid me for it because I belong in a quiet, boring life that leaves me the air to breathe in order to write and think. In Cairo, air to breathe (without ruining your lungs) is a scarce good. I realized it's too early for me to pursue a house in the woods with nothing but a typewriter, and that I need to take this opportunity to stay young while I am on top of the fact that someone is actually willing to give me a job. I want to slow down but I just don't get to yet.
Since I am very aware of my feelings at all times and try to practice expressing them in writing it shouldn't be too hard for me to explain how I feel leaving Germany. Mostly, my sentiments have come out as bashing because I don't like very much about it. I have been fortunate enough to get the chance to leave a few times before, and everywhere I went I felt more belonging. Just because I know that Germany is killing my soul it's still hard to leave. Unfortunately, this boring, life-sucking place is and always will be home, and abandoning it for a place you vowed six years ago to never return to is not an easy feat.
Of course I don't want to continue the life I live. I love a lot of people here and the times I did have with them were awesome but they were so infrequent in the last year that they aren't really worth sticking around for. I'm just so mad that the life I'm living is calling for me to constantly meet, inverst and then leave people. I chose that life to begin with, thinking that I could choose when to stop it, too. Unfortunately, all I want is to stay somewhere. I tried so ridiculously hard to make that place Germany, both in employment and in my head, but I can't help but thinking it's just not meant to be. It's probably not Egypt for the rest of my life. As much as I want it to end, the quest is not over.
Some people might think this post is a performance but I am actually riding an even more emotional roller coaster right now than most days. Many people will read this not knowing me or not knowing me well. At the same time, future and past employers, friends and lovers will probably read it, too. 99% of all people though, unkonown or known, will not understand what this feels like. I don't have to be strong, and I realize I'm not right now. I am not unhappy. I am not depressed. I am not negative. I am not someone you can't trust around your kids or shouldn't employ. I'm merely a little bit lost and not used to being it. I hate nothing but I love little as well. That needs to change...
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