Pity Party: Party of One

Forewarning: this blog post is my pity party for myself.  If you are expecting happy stories and cute pictures, read no further - that is not what this post is about.  I am fully aware of how pathetic and ridiculous I sound, but I am just saying how I have been feeling.  Part of the reason I started this blog was so that I would start sharing my feelings - no matter how ridiculous they are.

Now, before you can study abroad, you are supposed to watch all of these informational videos on what to expect when you go abroad.  One of those videos is about the highs and lows of being abroad - how you cannot expect life to be perfect just because you are in a new place.  Even though you are in an amazing new place, life will still happen and you are not exempt from experiencing all ranges of emotions - good and bad.  With that being said, this week was a low week for me.  I guess I should have expected as much - I mean, it would have been too much to ask for to have two good weeks in a row, right?

Anyways, the week started on an iffy note when I realized that I forgot to take my meds over the weekend - those meds being my anti-depressants.  I hate to admit that they have such an impact on my mood, but they really do.  I mean, I'm not bipolar or anything, but when I don't take my meds, I can totally feel a difference.  I start to become way more irritable, doing little things become somewhat of a task, and my negative thought patterns spiral out of control.  With that being said, this week definitely did not get off on a good start…

Then, over the weekend, it was recruitment back at LMU.  Now, you are probably wondering why this affected me in any way, shape, or form.  To be honest, it should have not mattered to me as much as it did, but it caused me many sleepless nights.  I got really close to a lot of my residents this past semester and I guess I was just worried about them.  I was worried some of them wouldn't get their first choices and feel like they weren't good enough.  I was worried that some of them would get caught up in stereotypes and think that they were better than other people.  I was worried that some of them would be heart-broken and I wouldn't be able to be there to help them.  Needless to say, everything ended up fine, but still, it was just another thing that caused me anxiety this week.

On Tuesday morning (Monday night at home), it was bid night back home.  Again, this should not have mattered to me, but it did.  FOMO - or the fear of missing out - is a real thing for me.  I know that I am in Italy and realistically I am not missing out on much back at school, but this logic didn't work very well for me this time.  So many of my residents went Pi Phi and I just wish that I was there to celebrate with them.  Seeing so many pictures of my best friends with so many of my favorite residents just made me miss home that much more.

With that being said, I just missed all of my friends a lot this week.  I have been keeping in contact with a lot of them, but not to the extent where I am not present here in Italy.  Talking to them has just made me miss them more than I think I would if I wasn't talking to them.  Since this week has been especially rough, all I have wanted to do was sit in my best friend's room with a carton of ice cream and just cry about life with them.  I am fully aware that none of my relationships at home were perfect, but it's easy to look at them as if they were when the relationships here aren't quite as good - yet.  I have a lot of faith that I am going to create wonderfully life-changing relationships here, but it's just taking some time and I'm getting antsy…

Then there are the people here.  I really like a lot of them, but it has been hard to weasel my way into their lives.  98% of the kids here are from Gonzaga so even if they weren't necessarily friends at school, they all at least knew who each other was.  With that being said, it is easier for people to approach people that they recognize, find common ground with people that they have mutual friends, etc.  So, since I don't go to Gonzaga, people have not been as willing to approach me and make an effort to befriend me.  This isn't to say that I haven't been trying to make friends, it's just that it has been hard to making lasting relationships when it is easier for the other people to cling to the people they already know.  I really feel like an outsider here.

On top of being ostracized for being a non-GU student, I am also on the outside because of the fact that I don't drink.  This may sound like a bit of an exaggeration, but it really feels like everyone here is focused solely on drinking to get drunk - all the time.  Now, I have absolutely nothing against people who choose to drink - it's your life, do what you want with it, but don't judge me for deciding not to partake.  At school, I hang out with people who drink and go to plenty of events where people are hammered (hello Mob Days) and don't drink and it's fine because people know me as more than just the girl who doesn't drink and they accept me for who I am.  Here, all people know me as is the non-GU student who doesn't want to drink, and oftentimes it seems like people don't care to get to know me beyond that.  It's just kind of sad.

Besides all of that going on, there was also an air traffic controller strike in France - aka my flight to Paris was cancelled.  My roommate and I got an email from the airline less than 24 hours before we were supposed to leave telling us that we no longer had a way to get to Paris.  Cool.  So, I have now been in Florence for three weekends in a row.  I know, poor me, I'm stuck in Italy, my life is so hard.  But really, it is kind of a bummer.  I was just ready to get out of my pensione and explore Europe a bit more.  On the weekends, it's pretty dead around here.  On top of no one being here, its also been raining here for the past couple weeks, so it's been hard to find motivation to do anything since God has been literally raining on our parade.

So yeah…needless to say, I am ready for this week to be over.  I am hopeful about what the future has in store…

Ciao for now!

Sincerely yours,
Just Another Original