This is going to be a free-written blog post. Not going to try and structure my thoughts very much, what you read is what I thought as I thought it. Here goes…
So in a little less than two hours as I start writing this it’s going to be my 24th birthday. Twenty four years old and still no degree. Not even an Associate’s (getting that finally sorted now, though). If I do a search for my old high school classmates on Facebook, most of them are close to finishing graduate school or they’ve graduated with their bachelor degree and are working somewhere. Maybe they’re happy. Maybe they’re miserable. Whatever. I’m not friends with any of them, anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. Just names and faces I recognize. Every person must travel their own path and mine is quite different than anyone I have ever met back home. Most of them that talked such a big talk have done nothing with their lives and I just kind of skated through without much of a plan at all and I’m now on another continent. Funny how life works out, huh?
I suppose that’s what’s killing me the most, though, is that I am not home for my birthday. It really shouldn’t matter at all. I came to Austria in July 2007 and I haven’t celebrated my birthday at home since then. When I was home to surprise my parents a few weeks ago, the day before I left we celebrated my birthday and it was great. This time is different in some way. Not quite sure how. I know what set it off today, however. Today I got a class that I did in the United States credited towards my degree here in Austria and I was overjoyed because I did not want to take the exam for this class after hearing all the horror stories about it. Obviously I called my parents when I got home this evening to tell them the good news and that brightened their days because they both weren’t having the best of days up until that point. Then I was watching one of my favorite shows on TV called “Goodbye, Deutschland”, a show about Germans that move away from Germany usually for employment in other countries, sometimes for other reasons. There was one scene where a family was leaving Australia and the grandparents were saying good bye to their children and their grandchildren and the memories of saying good bye to my parents a few weeks ago just came flooding back all at once. This past good bye at the airport was pretty rough. I consider myself a pretty tough guy but I’ve got a soft center like any normal person and this scene on TV really hit home and I suddenly started crying like a little baby, something that instant has never happened to me before.
Am I sad about not being at home? Sure, of course I am. Do I regret coming to Austria? Not a single bit. I’ve had plenty of ups and downs over the past few years but it has been an amazing experience and one that I will treasure for my entire life, an experience that has essentially shaped who I am today. Sure, the first 20 years were important but these past few have been the most important. If it wasn’t for the truly outstanding support I’ve had from family and friends both here and back home, I never would have been able to make it. Creating my account on Twitter was also one of the best things I could have ever done. It has put me into contact with so many people, some of whom have become very close friends and a few who are now nearly family.
When I think about home, it’s hard to think of it as home as it used to be. Honestly if it wasn’t for my parents and my four close friends back there I wouldn’t have any excuse ever to return. Vienna has also become my home. At the end of my visit in the United States I could not wait to return to Vienna and get back to studying and my life here. I missed it all just like I miss the United States. Actually, no. I don’t miss the United States. I miss my family and friends in the United States. As far as I’m concerned, the rest of the country can go to hell - it’s already on the bleedin’ way as it is.
I’ve already said this, but I’m going to say it again: it’s been an amazing ride. To the folks that have managed to make it to the end, if you ever have the chance to live abroad for an extended period of time you should most definitely grab the chance and do it. Such chances only come seldom in life and they need to be taken advantage of.
So in closing I’d like to go ahead and post the motto by which I try to live every day of my life (looking to get it tattooed) and it’s a line from a Mötley Crüe song…
“If you wanna live life on your own terms, you gotta be willing to crash and burn.”
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