T-Minus Ten Days

Dieci Giorni. Ten days, ladies and gents, until my return to the homeland. You could say that I'm counting down to a return to normalcy, but I have reason to believe that normalcy is nowhere in sight. In hindsight, there never really has been any normalcy, and in nearsight optimism seems pointless in expecting normality to bare its bloody fangs. Optimism being the operative word. Which should technically be changed to pessimism, considering my feelings towards boring old normality anyway.

I swear I don't actively choose to confuse. My thoughts just spin like tires before you peel out; and then you catch some traction and just vomit all the thoughts up in no particular order, leaving behind that nasty burning rubber smell that never makes anyone happy. Regardless, I'd like to imagine that following my stream of consciousness is as amusing for ye olde crowde as it is for myself. Here's hoping. :)

I'm getting off track already. Which is similar (and only slightly more captivating) to the 45 minutes I spent rambling about the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation this morning. Imagine that haystack of ecstasy. So I have Ten Days (yes, I insist on capitalizing) until I endure the plane ride home, audition the next morning, and begin the morally degrading process of looking for apartments, among which I expect to find none until August. Not to mention I get my best friend Natalie back, which couldn't make me happier about this week-long jaunt in New York. That and the firm commitment to eating a sickening amount of terrible (but really, mind-blowing) American Fast Food. Nothing like a Crunchwrap supreme. Nothing.

In summary, is the verdict in about coming back? It is indeed, and the results are varied.

There is so much that I will miss about Italy. I will miss the pace, and I will miss the challenge. If there was anything that I had needed, it was being challenged in a way that I had to either adapt to or lose against. And I adapted. Well, too, because I can actually say that I speak Italian. Sure, I can't do some stuff, but I can have a conversation. The most important thing about feeling confident about language skills is that you get your personality back. For so long I have felt like everything about my personality has been lost; sense of humor, mischief, introspect. You can't say anything real. You can't make connections. You can't do anything without the words to do it with, and I didn't realize how much of a crippler that was until I got sick of laughing the incompetence off my shoulders. So I stepped up and it got me to where I am, which is something I am proud of. Hold your own, know your name, and go your own way, right? I'm blown away to realize that it took me four months to discover I was lying to myself.

There's a lot of weight behind that, isn't there? And yet. Stumbling through your unconscious actions takes a lot of patience, something I am unfamiliar with. In the future, I'm pretty sure it will continue to take me further. With patience, of course. Woot woot.