So here's another saga of an ex-exchange student.

I'm being haunted by memories of Croatia.

Last year I spent my Christmas time missing home. Totally understandable.
I didn't cry or weep or sit around being a little Negative Nelly. That wouldn't be a good look for an exchange student. But God did I miss home. I looked at statuses and pictures of people talking about being home for Christmas. I was jealous and upset. I wanted to spend my Christmas with my family, more than anything.

(In my other blog page I mentioned that Thanksgiving was harder than Christmas for me, but regardless, they were both pretty hard. Christmas was just easier because I'd already gone through the extreme need to be with my family already so I knew how to deal.)

But anyways. It was hard for me.

Now that I'm home and spent my Christmas with my family, I feel something else towards it. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy to be home for Christmas this year. It's nice to see what I missed out on last year and all. But I still find myself sad and missing something else.
I'm missing my Christmas in Croatia. With that family. With those friends. With those memories. With that life.

I've been struggling with this long enough to ponder and analyze myself enough that it's gotten to the point where I can't sleep.
Every moment of everyday I sit around thinking about something or someone from my year abroad.
I might have thought before was hard, but this is an all time low.

With every break up or sad parting, people say give it time and you'll be okay.

I'm not okay. I mean, granted, they probably mean a whole lot more time than six months but it's most definitely not getting any easier. It gets harder and harder as the months go by.

And that was before the dreams started.
About two weeks ago, my brain turned against me. Every night I go to sleep feeling moderately okay. But as soon as I wake up from whatever tortuous dream my brain has put me through, I feel lost and confused and sad.
Every night I have a dream about being in Croatia or in Europe or with my friends or family from Croatia.
As soon as I wake up, I have to remind myself of where I am. Remind myself I'm in the states, in my bed, with my family and my cats. And I still feel an overwhelming wave of sadness hit me. It's a struggle every morning when I have to deal with an actual dream of me returning to my 2nd home to find out that I wasn't really there, and it was all an illusion and that happiness was only fleeting.
It sucks balls.
I sort of tried talking to my sister and dad about one dream but it just sounded like another whine about how I miss Croatia and how everything here wasn't good enough for me and yada yada yada. Which is most definitely not the case.
I love being home. I love having my family so nearby and being able to spend hours talking to them without having to worry about my mic not working on skype or the hour being too late due to the time difference.

It all just sucks.
That's the amount of vocab I can put into this feeling after spending one semester in college. I know, impressive.
It's the best way I can describe it without carrying on with adjectives and analogies and what not.
It all just sucks so much.

I'm not much of one to cry about a lot so it's good to know that it hasn't gotten that low. But I'm afraid for the day when it will.

I would do anything in my power to go back to Croatia. Even for a day, though I know it wouldn't be long enough. No time will.
I'm like a lovesick twilight fan here. Bleh!

And when I say that memories of it trouble me, I don't mean like five minutes of it every other day. It's usually about every other five minutes of every day. It blows.

And I know that if I was in Croatia for another year, I'd sit there complaining about how I miss things from Wisconsin.
I just can't be happy.
I want what I don't have. Always a problem for any common human being, more specially a dramatic teenage girl who has an unhealthy relationship with her cats.

I'd do anything to have the money to live in Croatia. I want to go to college there so badly. Hopefully get a job there so I can come home for holidays. Maybe that'd balance out. But I've looked into colleges and all and have come to the conclusion that a college degree in the U.S. looks 10 times better than one from Croatia. But still...boo!

I'm sorry if this is a weird blog. It's just a sad one about a sad girl with sad hopes and sad problems.

I just hope that these gosh dang dreams lighten up a little.

Croatia haunts me.... First world problems, I know.

Well that was my boo whoo moment for the time being. I'm sorry for those who read this that I took it out on you. No amount of talking about it makes it better, it probably only makes it worse. Since talking about it leads me to finding solutions that never really are good ones in the long run so it only leads me to feeling like there's not much hope. And then I'm back to the drawing board. And not to mention the fact that I bum out everyone who had to listen to it.

Okay whatever, I'll man up, rub some dirt in it, grow some balls, be a lady and all.

Here's to me, growing a pair.
Night y'all