I announced by various means to very little fanfare that I have been accepted into my MA program at Católica in the past week, which has put the keystone into a creeping perception I've had of the time I'm spending at home in Denver for the short summer period. While I find myself pulled in many directions, I feel like I've managed to steer them all toward the end point that I actually want for myself. I feel almost totally in charge of myself for the first time.
I have a lot to cover in this post, but I'm going to try to write as concisely as possible, because the idea of a drawling blog post irritates me in the current moment.
I flirted with the idea of writing the word home in quotation marks just now, and that's because I find myself now occupying the space of tourist in the city I was born and lived in for twenty years. This may be the last time I live here for a while, or it could be that I'm taking a break for just a year or two. I don't know yet, but the point remains that I am as much a visitor here as I am a resident now, and it is peculiar given the reflexive familiarity of all that is around me. I have blissfully few obligations to fulfill and the presence of mind to actually accomplish them now, and it seems that for all of the strife in determining what I wanted and was going to do with myself, the dust has settled where it needed to. The only downside to the intentionally reduced duration of stay is that I'm finding it near-impossible to find formal employment, which I had intended to secure for the summer months. I am surviving somehow despite that, however, and have gained the perspective of not needing to discontinue my newly-acquired observational habits from abroad while I am here, for there are people in other places who know nothing about where I am from and I am discovering new things to appreciate about being home while giving up on the idea of being landed anywhere in particular.
I have held on linguistically despite the scene changes since Lisbon, my Portuguese suffering not at all despite being immersed in French and then English for extended periods. On the contrary, I felt it more difficult to start the motor, so to speak, with French when I was in Paris, whether for exhaustion, for the sake of continuing to use and think in Portuguese, or for the knowledge and anticipation of speaking English all the time immediately thereafter. I was reduced to a terrible Franglais that is not particularly befitting of my knowledge or capabilities, but given the situation with my friends, it worked out fine. Paris is as much a home for me as Denver or Lisbon as ever, if not more so between all three now as I come into my own and spend more time in each place. So I find that my Portuguese is sufficient that I think and function in it side by side with English much of the time, albeit with obvious shortcomings in some manners of expression for want of vocabulary. It is a peculiar self realization, as I never anticipated overcoming the block I have always had of verbal output, nor in that particular language. Now that I know I can, I will continue on with the Portuguese course I was taking to hopefully build upon that progress.
Being single in the place where I was so desperately holding onto a relationship that was coming to an inevitable, crashing end has been less bothersome than I expected, much as the interactions I have had with the other half of that equation have been. My perspective on being social, aside from the context of a relationship, seems to have shifted with the lessons learned from my Portuguese spring; I have made a more pointed effort to spend time with my actual, longstanding close friends than I might otherwise have, yet I have also pursued meeting new people (read: menfolk) for the sake of taking life by the horns and not getting trapped in an unnecessary melancholy. Without the yoke of feeling like I need to hold onto an intimate relationship in order to preserve that connection, my life feels more dynamic and I feel more in charge of myself. I enjoy myself. I like being single. I don't foresee that changing in the near or even somewhat more distant future. I'm happy to be living my own life and having new experiences without trying to force myself to take root somewhere or in some sort of situation that is not fulfilling for me. That process has come full circle.
Full circle: with the arrival of shitty weather in Denver, that seems to be symbolically fitting of everything happening right now.
I have a lot to cover in this post, but I'm going to try to write as concisely as possible, because the idea of a drawling blog post irritates me in the current moment.
I flirted with the idea of writing the word home in quotation marks just now, and that's because I find myself now occupying the space of tourist in the city I was born and lived in for twenty years. This may be the last time I live here for a while, or it could be that I'm taking a break for just a year or two. I don't know yet, but the point remains that I am as much a visitor here as I am a resident now, and it is peculiar given the reflexive familiarity of all that is around me. I have blissfully few obligations to fulfill and the presence of mind to actually accomplish them now, and it seems that for all of the strife in determining what I wanted and was going to do with myself, the dust has settled where it needed to. The only downside to the intentionally reduced duration of stay is that I'm finding it near-impossible to find formal employment, which I had intended to secure for the summer months. I am surviving somehow despite that, however, and have gained the perspective of not needing to discontinue my newly-acquired observational habits from abroad while I am here, for there are people in other places who know nothing about where I am from and I am discovering new things to appreciate about being home while giving up on the idea of being landed anywhere in particular.
I have held on linguistically despite the scene changes since Lisbon, my Portuguese suffering not at all despite being immersed in French and then English for extended periods. On the contrary, I felt it more difficult to start the motor, so to speak, with French when I was in Paris, whether for exhaustion, for the sake of continuing to use and think in Portuguese, or for the knowledge and anticipation of speaking English all the time immediately thereafter. I was reduced to a terrible Franglais that is not particularly befitting of my knowledge or capabilities, but given the situation with my friends, it worked out fine. Paris is as much a home for me as Denver or Lisbon as ever, if not more so between all three now as I come into my own and spend more time in each place. So I find that my Portuguese is sufficient that I think and function in it side by side with English much of the time, albeit with obvious shortcomings in some manners of expression for want of vocabulary. It is a peculiar self realization, as I never anticipated overcoming the block I have always had of verbal output, nor in that particular language. Now that I know I can, I will continue on with the Portuguese course I was taking to hopefully build upon that progress.
Being single in the place where I was so desperately holding onto a relationship that was coming to an inevitable, crashing end has been less bothersome than I expected, much as the interactions I have had with the other half of that equation have been. My perspective on being social, aside from the context of a relationship, seems to have shifted with the lessons learned from my Portuguese spring; I have made a more pointed effort to spend time with my actual, longstanding close friends than I might otherwise have, yet I have also pursued meeting new people (read: menfolk) for the sake of taking life by the horns and not getting trapped in an unnecessary melancholy. Without the yoke of feeling like I need to hold onto an intimate relationship in order to preserve that connection, my life feels more dynamic and I feel more in charge of myself. I enjoy myself. I like being single. I don't foresee that changing in the near or even somewhat more distant future. I'm happy to be living my own life and having new experiences without trying to force myself to take root somewhere or in some sort of situation that is not fulfilling for me. That process has come full circle.
Full circle: with the arrival of shitty weather in Denver, that seems to be symbolically fitting of everything happening right now.
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