you are here

Nostalgia is one of my favorite pastimes. Whenever I have brain space to myself, my mind usually wanders into what I was doing a year ago, when the weather was the same. I hear a forgotten song and go back to the moment I first heard it, who played it for me, where we were. When I’m in a new place, nostalgia is my anchor, a reminder that I have infinite experiences and people to be grateful for. In springtime, I’m especially nostalgic because, like the rest of the living world, it’s the perfect time to shed all the old parts you’re made of.

Starting new is a tough concept for me – I am fiercely loyal to the people and places I love. I have always thought that any problem can be fixed by enough hard work or optimism or a shift in perspective. I can count all of the things I’ve quit on one hand, and can’t even begin making a list of things I’ve persisted through to the point of exhaustion. I like it when things work. It’s easier that way.

This time last year, I finally came to terms with my first real heartbreak – a slow burn of a failure whose charred remains are still smoking. I’m independent to a fault, but when I commit to anything, I continue to believe in its goodness until it breaks me. Even when everything good has long since dried up. This time last year, I began spiraling into someone I could no longer recognize. I was living in my hometown – a place I love with a proud vengeance, but an immeasurably tough place to be when things aren't going well. I felt like there was a magnifying glass on my failure. An emphasis on what I fucked up. By the Fourth of July I decided to commit to change.

I decided to seek out infinite possibility and it was waiting for me the second I opened my eyes to it. It took me one week to find a job abroad and two days to sign the contract. I booked a plane ticket almost immediately. I decided I was comfortable draining the savings account I’d religiously built up over the years. Best of all, I didn’t have to ask anyone for help. Miraculously, moving to Berlin was byfar the easiest decision I’ve ever made. When I stepped off the plane, I felt awake for the first time in months. I was surrounded by an abundance of space, something I hadn’t seen in the two years I’d been in Nashville. Jetlagged and dry eyed, I heard a steady mantra: “you are here, you are here, you are here.”

For now I’m thrilled to be wandering in the total unknown. My feet always hurt because I walk everywhere. My head is wrapped up in conjugations and new letters I can’t pronounce. My heart feels four years younger. I don’t have an end date or an idea of what’s next, but I do have a new perspective and for the first time in a long time, I know it can fix anything wrong.

we're going to be friends

My new favorite blogger, Liv Hambrett, an Australian who's been living in Germany for years, wrote today about the number one thing that's been plaguing me since I've been here - which will be a whopping three months next week - making friends. Making real, easy-to-call, see-you-in-ten-minutes friends in a country where you don't speak the language, don't know a soul, and don't have a work group helping you meet people you have something in common with, is the most difficult thing I've ever done and the only thing I was really worried about before I hopped on the plane. Here, a particularly resonant quote from her piece:

"I find myself, once more, in the generally nervous, uncomfortable position of having to make friends. Of having to enter, with either stealth or flat out asking for mercy, pre-existing social clusters. And it’s not easy. In fact, making friends is hard work, particularly at an age at which you have friends, you have brilliant, smart, funny, like-minded friends that form part of a group you have spent a lifetime cultivating. Particularly at an age when asking ‘can I play too’ doesn’t come as naturally, for various reasons, as it does when you’re six. Particularly when you can’t help but feel, wearily, been there done that, that you have friends, they’re just not here."

I wrote about my frustration and pseudo-loneliness a little last month, but the Easter Holidays, which mean four days off of work here in Germany and four days of Homeland marathons and finishing three books I've been working on, have inspired me to kick it into gear on the friend front. This week, I'm sucking up my pride and officially seeking out other outlets to hopefully find at least a couple people to hang with on a more regular basis. 

Also, one of my biggest irrational fears is that I'm always on the verge of annoying the shit out of people when in reality (so I'm told) I'm not, so I'm attempting one more round of attempting to enter pre-existing social groups...which is probably my worst nightmare. Good vibes appreciated.

In the meantime, I'm missing these "brilliant, smart, funny, like-minded friends" that just don't happen to be here in Berlin with me:

places like this

There are very few things more exhilarating to me than being alone in a foreign place. I so often wish I was content to stay in my comfort zone surrounded by people I know and love, but my desire to explore has been a guiding constant since as far back as I can remember. When I switched schools in first grade, I remember being so overwhelmed with the prospect of new friends and a new routine. I chose to go to a college that, for all of its merits, felt 100% alien to me, and when I started working, quickly found that I produced my best work when pushing the limits on time and content. If you tell me there's a rule, I will definitely break it the first chance I get (sorry mom).

I thrive when seeking out anything that makes me a little bit nervous.

So. Here I am, living in Berlin by myself. I know maybe three words of German, am pausing a momentum-gaining career (that I liked!), am working for a family I've known little more than a week and I haven't felt happier in years.

I'm settling into this new place on the outskirts of my comfort zone for countless reasons, but the one I keep hearing out loud is that now's the time for me to rediscover what makes me feel full. For now, it look like finding that fullness is going to take me on a trip into the total unknown. Buckle up, y'all.