there's no place like "home"

good grief i am impatient and unsettled today. i have much to do and a list of things i "should" be doing that is staring me down as i sit here huddled in my cement home under my electric blanket. it is friday which means i do not have classes to teach and i am thrilled about it. if only i could get myself to focus on being here instead of worrying about the months ahead of me and how i'm going to shoo them by as quickly as possible.

this is probably an odd thing to admit, but i feel like i'm behind. a year and a half in bulgaria under my belt and i feel like i should be on my way to bigger and better things. some (not many) of my friends are moving on to bigger and better things stateside and i want nothing more than my chance to dive in head first. what's the rush?, you think to yourself. an excellent question, friends.

i do not have an answer. really, i should be enjoying these last 9 months instead of fretting away the time concentrating on what my life is going to look like next summer. another friend and fellow blogger wrote she could feel life here stirring underneath the surface (yea, paraphrased... she said it better here) and i certainly can't argue that i feel that same tug of life yanking at me. i can taste the end of this craziness and long for the stability and responsibility of undertaking an officially "adult life." because, living here and working here, while exotic and different, doesn't give me a satisfying sense of responsibility. having an end in sight doesn't add to the arduous task of getting myself to settle down here long enough to do something and then move on. the frustration and excitement of feeling a new sense of life back in the states is seeping into my experience here; my inability to neatly compartmentalize bulgaria in a plastic container far removed from life upon return to the states is... well, aggravating.

so, i think a lot. and i ramble in my head and in journals that are incoherent at best. and i muster what i can to "be here" when i'm not settled into the nook of my quiet and cold apartment. i am, in fact, pleased to be in this new town; it is a gift i know i wouldn't appreciate so well had i not been elsewhere simply surviving all last yet. but, i am a stewer (it's a word now) and i am stewing. i need something to snap me out of it though i haven't met that certain miraculous 'thing' yet.

and while i sit here planning my future life, perusing job portals and filling in the appropriate personal information to get balls rolling, i wonder to myself...

why am i just SO anxious to get out of here?

why can't i simply learn to soak in each moment for what it is?

when will i learn that planning for the future is one of the most futile of all tasks-- one that leads to my inevitable despair as expectations turn out to be altered or just not met?

what do i do when i return and feel all sorts of nostalgic and sad about no longer being in bulgaria (bleck, is that even going to happen? i cannot even fathom it now...though i'm sure it will).

i'm not even miserable here anymore, so someone pinch me and wake me the hell up. i need a good slap on the head to encourage an increasingly "live in the present" approach to my numbered days in bulgaria. they're numbered now, though i couldn't tell you the exact number left, and it finally feels like a count down, at least of months, is an appropriate coping mechanism.


will someone remind me that i'm not missing out, that i'm not so far behind in planning my life and my bank accounts and building credit and finding a decent job back in the states? will someone reassure me that homesickness is actually a really exquisite symbol of all the cherished and wonderful things i left behind rather than an empty and desperate feeling shoving me into crazy spells of frenzied job/apartment/car hunts on craigslist at 12:30am?

that'd be awesome. thanks.