So. As you may or may not know, I lived in Switzerland last year.
Why is that?
Let me tell you a story.
Almost eighteen years ago, a beautiful little girl was born in the Washington DC area. She lived in that area for seventeen mostly happy years. She made wonderful friends and mostly enjoyed her school and loved to walk from her house to CVS to buy Diet Coke and trashy magazines, which are still a guilty pleasure of hers, by the way.
One day last February, her parents told her that her father may be offered a sweet job in Switzerland. The beautiful little girl (who had now grown up into a stunningly gorgeous young woman) was struck by the romantic notion of living in Europe and drinking coffee and wearing scarves, and immediately threw her support behind this idea.
A few months later, she had a series of miniature nervous breakdowns surrounding this totally-devastating-life-change. The emotional instability continued into the summer.
In the summer, she pretended to pack boxes and tried to learn German and went a little crazy. And then, on August 14, 2009, she got on an airplane from America to Switzerland, wearing a pair of turquoise heart-shaped glasses from Forever 21 and a hat she bought at target, feeling very much like Lady GaGa for some reason.
That year, she had another series of miniature nervous breakdowns, made new friends, drank legally, took online classes, embarrassed herself in German, and had a general roller coaster of a senior year. She got a tattoo and jumped into a river. She got into college and graduated in America and became a bit of a vagrant (and couch-surfing pro).
Then last August I showed up at Brown University with three suitcases and an army of family members, and could have put it all behind me, but what's the fun in that? I'm still figuring out how this series of events has influenced my world view. I'm still figuring out what I mean when I say I'm going "home". All I know is that now, I'm here, at school, on purpose, and I love it.
