TBT Holiday Edition

This is a holiday edition Throwback Thursday post. It’s about the first time I was away for the holidays and the emotions and thoughts the experience inspired. Enjoy!

November 2012

The past month has been uneventful in the best ways possible. It has given me a chance to forge stronger friendships, catch up on TV shows, and explore the local scene. Although, it is rare that everyone from work comes together to hang out, an opportunity presented itself when we celebrated Thanksgiving. With almost equal numbers of Canadian’s and American’s we had to make it fair and pick a neutral day. So, we went with the first weekend of November.

I split the cost of a toaster over with one of my coworkers for the occasion. Honestly, it was the best investment ever! So many masterpieces have come out of it including peach cobbler, maple glazed salmon, sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, maple cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, banana bread, carrot cake, vanilla cake, cheddar-bacon biscuits, and vegetable casserole. I’m getting distracted…back to Thanksgiving.

There were over twenty of us crammed into one flat and everyone brought something to contribute. Over the years I’ve definitely developed a taste standard for Thanksgiving. I’m accustomed to the stuffing tasting the way Babi makes it, and the sweet potatoes being laced with Tang. Having a potluck style Thanksgiving allowed me to taste a little part of the family tradition of others. It also made me want to steal some of the recipes and bring them home. We ate until our stomachs were bursting and then trickled back to our own flats. I invited a few people over to watch a Christmas movie, others went out to drink, some stayed to wait for their second wind and eat more.

Lately, I have found myself thinking about the future, life, and what I want. If you’ve never experienced this before it may be difficult to understand. If you have, however, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Have you ever had your heart pulling you in two conflicting directions?

I miss being at home with family, walking Midnight on the bike path, blasting my music in my car with the windows rolled down, preparing for the holidays. This will be the first year that I’m not with family at Christmas; the first year that I don’t set the table; the first year I don’t help bake cookies; the first year I don’t dance terrible ballet in Babi’s house to wordless Christmas carols when no one is watching.

Even though I miss all those things, my heart yearns for adventure, new places, languages, the world and everything in it. I knew when I decided to travel that I would miss home and worry about the people I left behind. The greatest challenge isn’t the feelings of longing, it’s not being able to share my experiences with people I love and the worry that something might happen to them while I’m away.

Being abroad is so exhilarating! I’ve already started planning for the next country and thinking about the ones after that. Then I get too far ahead and start to wonder what I am going to do with myself when the ten years are over. Where will I live? What will I do? I don’t know, and that scares the shit out of me. But at the same time, it makes everything I’m doing now so much better. I’m not sure how to describe it. The feeling of letting go, letting life ultimately decide what happens.

Yes, I will pick the places to go and the things to do. But by not planning a future, a career, a life-I have basically resigned myself to finding the answers along the way. I can’t stop the worry, but I can believe that things will turn out for the best. And as long as I follow my heart, everything will be ok. To all my friends and family back home I love and miss you so much! Happy Holidays!