The Morning After

Ugh. That sort of sums up how I feel right now, both emotionally and physically. Thanksgiving was yesterday and even though we are in London where food is always a little runnier and a little less flavorful than food in the U.S., we had a pretty awesome Thanksgiving feast if I do say so myself. Thanksgiving porn below:

So Thanksgiving was pretty cool. About a month ago I was lucky enough to find an American food store in Amsterdam where I found my french fried onion rings and last week Jenna and I found an American food store in Hampstead where we found stuffing, OceanSpray cranberry sauce in a can (!) and lots of other awesome things to make an awesome Thanksgiving. Here's a pic of me in action.

But Thanksgiving was also sort of sad too. Thanksgiving and other holidays are always a really big deal for my family because I have such a big extended family so it was sort of sad that I wasn't able to spend it with them, although I am not sure I would have traded Thanksgiving in London for Thanksgiving anywhere. Thanksgiving also marks the end of my time here and I can't believe that I will be leaving in less than a week. I almost don't know how I feel about it. I am definitely ready to move out of my flat and get out of the negative vibes that are currently forcing me to be holed up in my room, but I don't necessarily want to leave London. I am excited to get out of this flat and not have negative people in the program affect my life. I am excited to go back to Dominican and start classes and go to El Salvador in the spring. And I am excited to see Sarah and go to Chipotle and see the play she's been working so hard on in December. And I am excited to get back into a normal routine. But I am not necessarily excited to leave. It's a strange emotion that I can't really explain.

I have learned so much while I was here. And not just about British history, life, and culture. I really feel as though I have learned a lot about myself. And even though that wasn't always easy, I think it was ultimately a good thing. I feel like I know who I am now, which is a good thing. Even though some people who were in my life let me down and even though people I considered friends turned out to be very different people than who I thought they were, everything was still a learning experience and I really found out that I do not need anyone else. I can do things on my own and I do not need reassurance from anyone or anything. In a way I think that knowing you can be alone is liberating, especially when the people you relied on for support turn out to be kind of sucky at respecting and caring about you as a person. I still have people that I care about and I still have people I don't care about. I still have people I would consider friends and I still have people I wouldn't consider friends. And that's ok. That's normal. It's what everyone has. But the most important thing is that I still have myself and although I'm far from perfect and sometimes I can be a bitch and sometimes people have problems with what I say or do, I'm still ok with myself. And I think it's nice, for once, after trying to change myself for others or trying to hide my true feelings from friends, that I can say this is it. Take it or leave it. It's empowering in a way.

I think that this blog has been pretty negative the past couple months which is strange because I really don't feel like my time here has been completely negative. Of course there were negative points, but overall I think my time here has been pretty awesome. So I think I should turn over a new leaf. I am no longer going to let assbag people bother me. And if I do, I definitely won't blog about it. Although how fucked up is it that I made a Thanksgiving dinner for some sucky suckface who I do not even like and refuse to associate with? Ok that's it. Last blogging point about assbag people. There it is.