Sometimes I Fake It

, ,

I’m sure you’ve faked something at one time or another. We do it to protect ourselves. No one wants to be made fun of or seem vulnerable. So we cover things up or pretend we’re someone we’re not to hide the insecurities. We’ve all been there.

Sometimes I fake it too.

Sometimes I even convince myself. Living in Europe has been a dream of mine for half my life. So I guess I don’t want people to know it’s tough. I don’t want myself to know it’s tough.

Most days I’m doing good here in Freiburg. I go to my German class in the morning, I write and do other blog-related work in the afternoon. Andy and I go for a walk if the weather is nice when he gets home from work, we make dinner, and then we both work on our blogs. I’m slowly getting used to living in Germany, and I’m very slowly starting to meet people and make friends.

But then something ridiculous happens, like looking for a backpack and realizing I can’t find what I want here. But if they had an REI store, I know I’d find something. This spirals in my head as “I hate being here” which is over dramatic, but that’s just how it happens.

Or I see on Facebook that my friends back home are getting ready to watch the first UGA football game of the season, or a friend is about to give birth to her twins.

I feel like their lives are moving on while mine is staying the same. Which I know isn’t true. But because I can’t talk to them as often, and I certainly can’t see them as often, I miss things and I don’t hear about what’s going on in their day-to-day lives.

So I pretend I’m completely fine here. I pretend it’s great living in another country. I’m kind of stuck in the middle right now. Not quite adjusted to my new home, still miss my old home, but I know I don’t really want to live there. I want a worlds collide kind of compromise that doesn’t exist. Or maybe just teleportation.

I’d love to figure out what the hell I want to do with my life. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a fine question to ask a kid, but when you’re an adult who doesn’t want to be defined by a career, the question becomes a little more broad and morphs into, “what do I want to do with my life?”

There are a lot of things I love about blogging. I love that it brought me to my husband Andy, I love the friends I’ve made, I love sharing my experiences and encouraging others to travel. But sometimes there’s too much noise. I’ve realized I can’t hear myself think over all that noise. I can’t focus on nurturing any other ideas or projects because I’m so consumed with this.

As much as I’d like to, I can’t cut out the German class. And I need friends in order to feel more comfortable living here, so I need to make space in my life for them. I need some time to relax so I can continue adjusting.

I need some quiet so I can work on finding ways to make it a little less tough. So I can stop faking it.

**********

I’m going to take a little break from blogging. My sites are really important to me, and so is every single one of you who reads, I appreciate all of you. I still can’t believe just how many of you do read my blog! But I’m sure you can understand, and hopefully this will just be for a week or two. I love doing this too much to give it up. If you haven’t subscribed, now might be a good time so you’ll know when I’m back.

I still have lots to write about Turkey, Carcassonne, Andorra, Barcelona, and Portugal. I’m also planning a review of Mexican restaurants in Freiburg. But for now, if you’re looking for something to read, here are some of my most popular and some of my favorite posts, maybe you’ve missed some:

If you haven’t checked out my new site Travel Made Simple, here are a few posts from there as well: