In January when I predicted I would be largely ignoring my blog, I had no idea that I would entirely ignore it. Sorry about that. I stepped up my insta game, because I didn't want people to think I was depressed/kidnapped/dead/you've seen Taken.
So why the absence? Certainly not for lack of thought/emotion/experience.
I don't actually know.
I've decided to make a list of things I have been going through this spring, basically a bit of mental processing.
1. January and two weeks of February felt like the longest time period of my life. The days were short, my Italian classes long, and friends few. I was learning a lot through the many hours of silence that made that time so hard.
Before coming here, my life was incredibly comfortable and fun. This was the first time I had ever lived in a sadness that wouldn't go away with a new day. I missed my free time and friends that would fill it. I was sad because God was supposed to walk with me in this time, and He felt about as present as my knowledge of Italian (minimal at best).
One day I cried in front of my Italian teacher because I was tired of her making me feel incompetent. I was begging her to pay me even the slightest mind and change the course content and structure to something I could bear for three hours a day.
And nothing changed.
So the next day I walked to the immigration office and asked if I could stop going to classes, and they said that was fine.
So I quit. It was just that easy.
2. Being a quitter was exactly what I needed.
I have always had this superman complex, in that I need to present myself as strong and perfect. Anyone that knows me well knows that I'm a mess, but also that I am a good actress. In Italy had to face the undeniable reality that I make big mistakes. I quit an expensive Italian course I didn't deserve. I can't remember my own schedule, much less another families' that I happen to be living with/heavily involved in its organization.
I learned that all of these things are ok.
Yes, it is vitally important to strive for moral perfection and holiness. But it is one of the worst things I can do to pretend that I am already there. Which was what I had been doing for, oh, probably forever.
3. We humans are way more adaptable than we think.
Did you know that humans were made to run? Sure, cheetahs are faster. But we can go at a steady quick pace longer than most animals. This is why we could hunt big animals, and eventually grow to a population size of 7 billion.
Do many of us run? Heck no. I remember watching a high cross country race recently, and about 3/4 of the girls were crying as they were running. They admit, yeah its torture during the race, but after it is nice.
I've never been a runner, because it sucks. In fact, I've never really pushed through pain long enough to experience the reward of something like finishing a running race.
Here, I have. I learned to ski which was a long and arduous process. There were tears, cursing, and much shame. Yet. at the end of the season I could ski blacks with no problem.
I am able to understand about 60% of slow Italian now. That might be stretching it, but I no longer sweat when I have to ask a shoe clerk if she has my size. And I can talk to the nice grandparents on the bus who are nicer than most young people I've met here.
I get it now. Will I start running? No way. But I get why we were made to push through extended periods of muck and humiliation. It makes you feel alive.
4. I have met many wonderful friends here that have touched my heart in ways I never expected. I think I make it sound like I don't talk to a soul, but I definitely do. This is part of why mid-February to now has been wonderful. All of my friends here are super different, random, and wonderful. It will be harder than I ever imagined to say goodbye to this place. Not difficult to where I don't want to go home, but hard enough to miss it.
5. Spring brings redemption.
After I stopped going to Italian classes, an extra sun illuminated my whole world. I would get coffee with friends who reminded me that I'm not an idiot. I started painting more. I would spend hours in Churches just praying and looking at beautiful things. I temporarily took up exercising with other people. I read. Its not that I didn't do these things before, now that I think about it. But the Italian lessons put me in a dark place, one that I didn't realize it until I could look at winter Emmy in hindsight.
6. Then things started blooming, I started traveling more, and now I'm here. Can't wait to go home, but I am very content and at peace.
