Into Place

I think I learned a way to sum up the way I've been feeling lately: disrupted. 

My friend Adena talked about the importance of feeling at peace and okay with everything in your life. And sometimes that peace gets disrupted. I realized that I did have peace when I left Italy and that I was feeling disrupted since I arrived. 

However, just talking about the idea of being "disrupted" with someone, helped me get to a point where I feel less disrupted. I'm starting to come to peace with the idea that sometimes you won't be completely at peace. And just being able to stay that it's okay to not always have everything together.... just makes you kind of get back to being at peace. 

I've been taking more photos when I walk around campus. I've been surrounding myself more with people who accept the changes I've made in the past 6 months. I've taken some time to do what I want and need, versus feeling pressured to make up for all of the lost time I had with people. And I'm feeling better. 

Granted, there will be waves. But those waves are so beautiful. I used to loathe waves. 

Imagine yourself standing in the water at the beach. If you try to fight the current, if you try to reject the tide, it takes so much effort just to keep yourself in the same exact place. But if you lay back in the water, spread your fingers, and tilt your head back, and just let the water take you, it'll be a lot easier. Sure you don't know where you're going. But at least along the way, you're relaxed, enjoying the feel of the water, the view of the sky, and the smell of the salty sea air. 

Wild

Weeks before I left for Italy, I read a book called Wild. 

It's a true story about a girl, or I should say woman, who is fed up with her life, and decides to hike the PCT (pacific crest trail), even though she's never been backpacking. 

I've always dreamed of hiking the PCT, so I thought I should read the book. 

I cried so hard when I read that book. Her ability to leave it all, and do what she wanted, was so admirable. 

I didn't understand why I was crying at the time, or didn't really want to admit it. But one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that your family can give you incredible roots, but unfortunately peers can make you deviate from what your family taught you, or from what close friends taught you. 

Never stop surrounding yourself with people who make you want to be a better person. It can kill you. I know that sounds like an over exaggeration, but it can literally kill your spirit. 

I read that book, and 2 years before I read that book I think I would have told myself I am going to hike the PCT one day. But when I finished reading that book just a few months ago, I was kind of disconnected from that go-getter I used to be. And instead I thought... what a nice idea that would be.

I then kind of shook some sense into myself, and not only realized that one day I definitely need to, and WILL, get my booty on the PCT, but that also, Italy would be a similar experience. I'd be doing my own thing, and taking my own metaphorical path to figure myself out.

Now that I took that path, now that I have the tools to put myself out there, and now that I'm back, it's time for me to find another path to learn even more about myself.

miss

I wrote this this a few days before I got back to California:

I think what I miss most about California is night drives with the windows down, blasting music and singing at the top of my lungs as I look at the view of the bay area. I miss your hugs. Your voices. Your laughs. The ocean air. The redwoods. The smell of Berkeley. The smell of Theta Brunch. Your faces.

What I'll miss most about Bologna is the people, walking around in a medieval city, the accessibility of other countries, the food, the pace, how people live their own lives, speaking in italian, late nights, talks around my kitchen table (talks where you learn everything about the other. tired talks at 3am where you say things you would never otherwise say. that table... so much has happened around that table. the first dinner with my roommates, the first day I arrived I sat at the table shaking with fear, I've found out the best and worst news at that table. I've comforted people, they've comforted me. I've laughed til I've cried. I've eaten incredible meals, drank wine. partied, slept, cried, laughed, yelled, everything.) I'll miss having to push our building door open because it's so swollen from the rainy weather. I'll miss the stairs to my door. The way my room looks when I wake up in the morning. My housemates. The constant sound outside my window. Something is always happening in this city. The snow, walking in the snow and letting it hit my face. My housemates, the people in my program. My runs in Giardini Margherita. All of my interactions with strangers from countries all over the world, who spoke different languages -- those brief connections that change your life, that give you hope, that push you to be a better person. The feeling that you can do anything. The feeling that everything will work itself out. Ask anyone in my program, and we always say that in Bologna, it always feels like your luck should run out, but yet it never does. It just works itself out. Whether it works itself out to the best possible situation, who knows, but in the end... it still works. And you're okay.

Transition

Soooo... I doubt anyone is reading this blog anymore, but I'm going to keep writing because it's therapeutic for me and keeps me together. 

The transition period has been interesting. Coming to my home in San Juan Bautista, and being with my family felt incredible, rejuvenating. Sure, I missed Italy, but it felt really comforting to be back. 

Coming back to Berkeley was also comforting to a degree. Being a city, where you can go on a short walk and be submersed in nature was something I greatly missed. No more treeless city centers. Not to mention having a view of the bay, and a plethora of ethnic food to choose from. I missed so many people here, and it has been amazing to reconnect with you all. 

But man, this lifestyle, this pace. It ain't my jam. I can appreciate it, and I can find value in it; that glorified busy lifestyle really works for some people. But being in Italy made me realize, hey this ain't my thing. 

And that's okay. It's just difficult to not lose everything I learned in Italy, while I'm caught up in eating meals on the go, and in a school system that dictates when you study. Obviously, there is efficiency in this system, but people lose their identities through the cracks, through the darts to their next class, through the lack of communication with peers and professors. Whether you like it or not, Marx hit it on the nose with capitalist societies. 

I don't want to be defined by how many units I'm taking, how fast I can walk to my classes, what my grades are, how planned my day is, or how stressed I am. 

I want to be defined by what I'm learning. I want to soak up that learning. I want to be defined by what I do outside of school. What I do on Sundays. What I do with my time. 

And the thing is, "my"/me time doesn't seem to exist here. In Italy, every second, minute, hour, day is your time. Even when you're at work or school. Here, our only time is seen when we're not at work, or when we're not at school. It's weird.

Also, please don't mistake this rant for ungratefulness for the University I'm at, or the people who are in my life, or the opportunity I had in Berkeley. I'm just struggling with the collision of the two me's -- the Berkeley me, and the Bologna me. 

I thought I would come back to Berkeley with the Bologna me ingrained in my skin, stamped on my heart. And I think it's partially there, but I think I'm losing it. It was so easy for me to pick up my routine in Berkeley, but the thing is... the old me had that routine. So now, it's time for me to shake up my routine. Shake up what I do, how I think. Find balance. 

We get so caught up in the track we're all supposed to be on, the life we're supposed to have according to society, that we forget we have the reigns in our hands and we can steer "off course" any time we like. But then there's that whole idea, what the hell is even "off course!?!?!" Who's to say you're on course, off course, taking the high road, or the low road. Because every road leads to a different destination, with different benefits, but none of them are necessarily wrong. They're just different. 

I don't think anyone should ever have regret or feel like they didn't live their lives, because you're still living and you can do whatever you want at anytime. Sure, it's scary as all hell to take that leap into a pile of uncertainties, but all deterioration leads to the chance to rebuild, reshape, and grow. 

So even though I feel like I'm all over the place, I'm just seeing it as another opportunity to rebuild. Obviously, I'm a little bit ticked off that 3 weeks ago I feel like I had my whole world figured out... but shoot you all know I loved being challenged. You also know that 6 months ago the idea of change was the scariest thing in the world. But I'm confronting it now, instead of avoiding it. I'm being proactive. And I think that's something to really be thankful for. 

We as humans, have the ability to have mobility in our emotions and our personal strength. I like the fact that we can change and adapt. So now's the time for me to adapt and grow, but not settle.