So, I have to admit that these blog posts and I haven’t really been getting along (it is a work in progress I guess!), and it doesn’t help that before I even got to Albania I was pretty reluctant to start a blog. I wanted to be anti-technology, live in the moment, yada yada yada… Then I broke my foot pretty badly around the end of August and got sent home to America for treatment and decided I didn’t have anything “blog worthy” to say. However, I think I just used my injury as an excuse to avoid giving this blog thing a real effort, and I realized as I laid around in a cast in my childhood room bored out of my mind that I needed to capture this experience too.
Breaking a bone (or in my case bones) is never fun, that goes without saying, but what was worse for me was sitting in a hotel room for a week in the capital of Albania unable to walk around and not knowing what they were going to do with me. Finally, they decided to send me back to the States for treatment, but now I feel “stuck” in America in this limbo land trying to get back to Albania, which has been quite a struggle for me. As much as I love my friends and family and the easiness of life in a country that speaks my language, every day I miss Albania. I know, I know, a lot of people reading this are either calling bullshit or asking why, but I swear it is the truth. It comes down to one thing; I miss the simplicity of my life in Albania. For example, people know how much I love the amazing store Target, but even after 2 months of being home, going in there gives me a headache because I am so overwhelmed by choices and all the abundance around me.
Will I miss Target, family, friends, my dog, mochas, whole store isles just for cereal, driving in a car and not being scared for my life, being able to carry on a conversation for more than a minute, and a long list of other fantastic things America has to offer? Absolutely, yet what coming home has helped me realize is that those things aren’t going anywhere, but my time in Albania is. Albania is temporary, only two years of my life, and it is offering me a completely different life that is both simple and challenging at the same time. I remember being in Albania one night, my power had gone out, it had been an unproductive day at work, and I just thought to myself, what was I thinking quitting a job I liked to move here? Now I get it and I wasn’t crazy for moving to Albania because it has taught me to appreciate what I had in America while simultaneously opening a new world up to me. I have talked about it a lot with my family and friends since being home and I am almost certain I will go back and still have days and maybe weeks where I think I am insane for fighting so hard to go back to Albania, but bottom-line is that I want to be there because I think I have just scratched the surface of what I can learn from the experience.
Just a glimpse of what my 1st summer in Albania looked like... makes you want to visit right????:)
