I was considering putting this in the 'what made you happy?' thread, but it's rather long and it's not specifically about what makes me happy - more that the sense of malaise I've been feeling for a while has finally lightened, after having to deal with years and years of it getting heavier and heavier. I put it here because it kind of fits with the group hugs description, in a weird way. I'm not happy-happy, I'm just tired, spent and relieved. I'm also not really asking for advice in here, I just want to share my story, and perhaps some hugs along with it. So I've talked about my failed marriage before a few times, and submitted to @seebs blog my whole story with my abusive ex-husband. Having been with him and going through the break-up certainly hasn't helped my mental state, but he's not really the only reason I've been feeling down and blue for a while. A few people here know that I'm a Dutch person living in the States, and I've been here for quite a while (3 years). There was the initial culture shock, of course, as the American mindset IS just very different to my own and my own culture, but there's also been the sensation of being completely meaningless in a gigantic country that just doesn't care. It's not been easy at all, being away from family and friends, and this has been the first time I've travelled alone to a country and settled there by myself. I've travelled and lived in other countries before, but always in the company of my parents, so doing this was a HUGE step for me. I did my masters here, and that's another thing I had a lot of trouble adapting to - the rather impersonal American educational system as opposed to the small, rather intimate art academy I came from. It's been a bit of a... disappointment, I guess. I expected a more helpful academic environment, one that focused on its students' futures, instead of its students' in the moment, as my old academy did. We weren't prepared really for jobs and internships, and I took up education in the US hoping that would be different. Instead I ended up in an incredibly impersonal world where students where expected to fend for themselves, and not much guidance was really given to us. In retrospect I shouldn't have been surprised that in a very capitalist country where it's all about being assertive and networking, the school would be any different, I just expected that the school could help in developing that. And it didn't, not really. Instead I came in an environment with a LOT of mixed messages - 'we are academia and the bastion of all knowledge' on the one hand and on the other 'don't make difficult stuff, you wanna sell it, don't you?' And that just really confused and kind of depressed the hell out of me. So there was that on the academic front, but on the personal front my life was also kind of a shambles. I made the mistake of going to a dorm, and I hated it. No privacy, having to room with a really inconsiderate girl who just kept on smoking weed and stinking up the place, (RA's didn't do anything about her) and being really passive-agressive to me (like using my stuff without permission and breaking it, pretending later it wasn't a big deal) and just being miserable and lonely without having anyone to relate to. Not to mention how much this environment was amping my anxieties up to the maximum - I almost sabotaged my education twice by registering really, really late, or missing just enough classes to not fail. I did very well in the end, with really good grades, but never really feeling like I earned it, or like I was doing enough effort for it. Everyone around me was happy for me, except me. I also became more and more terrified of the future, and I believe a part of me married my ex because I wanted to have a support system and some stability instead of this blind morass of insecurity around me. I hoped that being together would give me the bravery to go out and apply, or at the very least give me a chance to stay in the US long enough to build something up. In reality it turned out to be an abusive situation where my ex was not interested in supporting me at all, and demanded the reverse actually. I think he didn't want a woman with a career at all, but a nice stay-at-home wife who would take care of the kids and the dog. Which, to put it mildly, is not really a picture I fit into well. And now, with all this over - I've graduated, I've divorced, I've lived here without finding a job - I'm fine. It's like all the bad things have happened and have been gotten over with, and now I've really graduated in a sense. Today is the first day I don't fear the insecurity of the future anymore, and I just feel really relieved. This week has also been the first time I haven't been afraid to acknowledge my own accomplishments. A while ago I felt that I didn't 'deserve' my birthday, like I hadn't done enough to really be awarded with a year extra, but now I'm just really okay with everything. I've done fine given the circumstances thrown at me, I'm still here, and the things I used to be afraid of and I thought were bad, just aren't so bad and scary anymore. People are happy with me, and I am pretty okay with myself now. Leaving this country isn't such a big deal to me anymore, and nothing is forever - this city won't walk away - I can always come back. It's time for a new chapter, and I think I'm ready and welcoming it.
This is late, but I just wanted to tell you that you sound really badass, especially since you were dealing with all these things while being far away from your homeland at that. That's pretty damn hardcore. I really hope the new chapter will be a much brighter one, friend!
