I have now been going through my intensive Italian Course for about 2 weeks now and I have to say, I am TIRED. I knew this would happen though. I have been through the exhaustion of constantly immersing yourself in a new language. It is difficult, frustrating and you usually feel like you are gaining absolutely no ground. Here in Italy, the transition may not be as extreme when I went to Sweden not knowing any Swedish. However, it is exhausting just the same.
Let me explain how I can be exhausted even though I live in a vacation destination.
1) Because Italian is not my native language (Obviously), I constantly have to translate every word I say from English into Italian before I actually speak it. Even when I am having simple conversations it is just natural for me to think it in English and then say what I need to say in Italian. This means that my brain is never fully resting when I am out and about or even just hanging out at home. As any college student can agree to, thinking is hard! The good news is that when my Italian gets better, this will soon go away. Eventually, I will not be translating anymore. A cat will simply be un gatto, my mind will learn to function in Italian. To make it easier on myself though, I have been walking to a place in the city that has fig trees and reading. For me, spending a few hours alone with a good (English!) book gives my mind the respite it desires.
2) Living with a host mom. I absolutely love my host mom, she is so sweet and helps me with Italian as well as makes sure that I am fed and happy. She does a fantastic job of doing anything she needs to do in order to make me feel comfortable here. That being said, I am still living in a stranger's house. It is only natural to feel less at ease in a house that is not your own with a mother that you met 2 weeks ago. I am constantly making sure that I am polite and respectful of her home. Of course, this is what is expected of me and if I welcomed a college student into my home I would expect no less. Sometimes though, you just need to be in your own bed in comfortable surroundings for your mind to be completely at ease.
3) Constantly being around new people. Anyone that knows me will immediately understand why this would exhaust me. Being around so many people wears out my energy and I often find that I need a little alone time to recover. This does not mean that I hate people or I am anti-social. I am simply an introvert and even though I love the people in my program, it does use a lot of energy for me to always be around 20 people that I hardly know. I am usually at home in a group of only a few people that I know extremely well but I am getting along fantastically with everyone and I feel that as time goes on it will become a bit less difficult for me to be around everyone all at once.
4) 5 hours of anything every day is tiring. This one is self-explanatory, I have 5 hours of Italian every day and that would make anyone tired.
5) Last but not least, being away from Aaron is really difficult. I am not quite sure how to explain it but being away from him sort of makes me feel like I am never fully energized. He is the one person that understands me the best and being around him does not drain my energy because I don't have to try to be anything special around him. I am doing so many amazing things here and Aaron is always in the back of my mind because I wish I could share this adventure with him.
So even though my facebook may make it seem like my life is one never ending party, I wanted to make this blog to show everyone the reality of living abroad. It is difficult. There are things that drain the energy from you and may make you really wish sometimes that maybe one thing could be familiar and then maybe everything would be easier. For example, every day I wish that there was a shower curtain for my shower. But there isn't and that is just something that you have to adjust to, I have learned to just deal with the fact that there is a mirror right in from of me and yeah, its totally awkward.
Despite the difficult things though, there are amazing things that happen everyday that make you so happy that nothing is familiar. Because if everything was familiar, would you still be amazed? Doubt it.
You are a very brave girl. I know what you mean about "alone time". It is very important to me, too. Always being ON is exhausting. I knew you would miss your sweetie. I speak from experience. It is very mature what you are doing. But you have always been a mature, thoughtful, beautiful woman. You are very blessed to have the ability, desire and energy to do what you have managed to do twice in your short life. This won't be the last time, either. You will have many more adventures!
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