Happy St. Pat's

If I knew where all this time went, I'd have the answer to everything.


A few glasses of chianti and you feel pretty nostalgic sometimes.  Nostalgic for things that haven't even ended.  


I guess now I know how people make a rash decision, go some place new, exciting, bold, and foreign, and then spend 15 years there in a blink of an eye.


I know enough Italian to think I could learn more.  I have a life in Italy that is no longer glamourous, impressive, or what have you. It just is.  It's my life and I'm scared to lose it.


I'm not wracked with this fear I'm never coming back.  Because I know I am.  I am too smart about Europe and European politics to let it go to waste.  I'm more scared of never being able to connect with people who haven't been as lucky as I am.


There's this crux right now.  I can return to a life in D.C.  Which is what I have expected all along.  And be satisfied with it.  Or.


I can look for jobs in Brussels.  Lobbying the EU.  Maybe it's American firm.  Maybe not.  Maybe I am completely outside my comfort zone.  Maybe I am enough warmed up to the idea of being an outsider  that I can do it again.  So maybe I go to Brussels.  Learn French (three of four years?).  Go back to work in the States with what I have and then start other things.  Stay here until I want so badly to go back.  Because that's the issue.  I don't want to go back badly enough.


If you had asked me in December if this was true I would have said no.  I wanted so badly to be home.


But I am learning to expect less out of my life there.


I am.  A function of it is that I am very disappointed right now in some people who have intentionally chosen to never be part of the life I have had here for a year.  They are never going to see it.  They are never going to know.  They are uninterested in making arrangements to be part of it.  I have tried to rationalize any excuse.  And I can't.  I'm embarrassed by their apparent apathy.  But it is liberting at the same time.


Maybe it is a kick in the ass I need.  Look Michelle.  No one is ever going to want to be a part of your life there.  But you love it anyways.  Make it yours.  Own it.  Don't stay because it impresses people.  It doesn't after all.  Don't stay because you think it gives you something to talk about in a bar in D.C.  


Do it because you want it.  Because you are ok with being outside your comfort zone.  Everyday.  Because you are smart about this.  Because it serves your country in the end.  Because you are not ready to answer to people in your life that underestimate you.  


If I thought any of the people who treat me like shit sometimes were going to read this, I'd be concerned. If living in Brussels would give me an ounce of an excuse not to spend the holidays with people who treat me like I am not smart, like I am dumb teenager who will never know anything about the world that's enough reason for me.  I'm not sure when I get to be thought of as a smart worldly adult to some people.  I'm not sure when I get to have a say.


Anyway.  I will probably delete this later, but I'm just a little full of reflection.


Happy St. Patrick's Day.