home sweet home

It has finally arrived, my moment of freedom, and let me tell you, freedom is sweet. I have been living on my own for just 1 week, and I already am struggling to remember what my life was like as a dependent. I still adore my pillows. I adore my own keen sense of style in my home decor and organization. I adore my stove and all of the foods from home that I have been able to make despite the lack of readily available ingredients. I adore the freedom to refuse to wear shapkas (house sandals/slippers), and I really adore that I can go barefoot and listen to the sweet silence of all those people who adamantly believe that shapkas are the absolute, be-all, end-all key to health. I adore that my house, and everything inside it, is mine. My doors close, and I am free to be as unapologetically American as I so choose, and let me tell you, I've missed it.

This is my street. Don't you worry, I picked the cutest one.

So in the past week, I have made chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip pancakes, Indian butter chicken, Mexican enchiladas, my gram's spaghetti, the worst ever gnocchi, uncle Brent's pizza, a nectarine pie (delicious despite going to get peaches, and realizing they are out of season), some jambalaya, and some delightful French toast. Unfortunately, cooking is time-consuming, a fact that I have forgotten in the past nine months of being cared for as a dependent. See the problem is that I spend a lot of time doing side projects such as tutoring, or in some cases full-on teaching English students. So, I go to work in the mornings, and in the afternoons 'round about 2 o'clock, I start my seemingly endless lessons, and roll on home around 7. As the requests for lessons keep coming, I am afraid that my dinner time will soon be pushed into the double digits. However, my time working with students is the time that I feel like I am really accomplishing something, so at least for now, I will continue to say yes.

Just out here spreading the word to the world that cookies are destined to be paired with milk.

In many ways as well, this move has brought out bits of me at my absolute worst. You see, I have a few quirks, some obsessive things, some triggers that send me into a whirlwind of anxiety. One of my biggest quirks is cleanliness, and please believe me when I tell you that I fully understand how ridiculous what I am about to say is. I think far too much about where people's shoes and clothes have been, and subsequently the grime, goo, unknown liquid, what have you, that is transferred from clothes and shoes, onto my couches, my blankets, my floor, etc. It consumes my mind when people are in my space, and, if I know and feel comfortable with someone, I let the thoughts come out into words and often into sourly worded commands, which is very off-putting, even to me as I hear the crazed words escaping my lips, but here we are.

Here's the thing, Albanians love pizza, but it's just not the same. No worries though, my American style pizza got great reviews. For example, "There is just.... so much flavor!!" I am also proud to announce that regardless of my mom's backseat cooking via Facetime, the pizza was delightful. p.s. Shout out to uncle Brent for a dough that dazzles internationally.

Then there is my obsession with finality. I am not patient, especially when I do not feel that the reason for waiting is particularly valid. For instance, I went to the internet shop in mid-September, and was told that I had to wait until October 1st to even get the wiring put into my house for internet. I took a deep breath and walked away, then on the 1st, I returned and was met with a whole slew of problems of paperwork that I needed to provide and scheduling issues with the electrician. I was frustrated because, in my mind, I should have known about all of these problems in mid-September, and the electrician had had over two weeks to come and put the wiring into place so as to be ready to simply plug in on the 1st. My frustration mounted because I was unable to react with the snappy words I would normally have used to express my thoughts about the delay and the lack of communication that caused this problem, and I ended up breaking down in frustrated tears at a coffee shop on day 3 of trying to figure it all out, simply because I just wanted to check "internet" off of my list of things to do. This was, and I'm sure will not be, the only instance of frustrated tears.

Stacks on stacks of pancakes because breakfast food is the only road to my heart. Unfortunate really, considering I am fresh out of maple syrup, a perfect substance that is regrettably absent in this country. It's fine, I'm fine, everything is fine, just one of those triggers that sends me into a fit of frustrated tears every time I think about pancakes.

So then there is just this inability to let things go. I have struggled with this for my entire life, and it is something that I am facing in seemingly every direction in my life right now. I don't easily forget words or actions that came at me with a back hand. I don't forget when people don't keep their word or when processes do not happen smoothly. I don't forget inconveniences that I feel could have been avoided with a bit more care. So, I will sit and stew over things until I feel I have received the apology that I deserve as well as a sort of repayment for the pain, frustration, wasted time, that was caused. Ridiculous, I'm aware, and what's even more ridiculous is that the closer I am with a person it seems, the worse it is, the more I expect in repayment. Anyway, in a particularly bitter moment the other day, I realized how much time I waste stewing, how much time and space my grudges take up in my mind, and I made a sort of resolution to be a little more understanding and a lot more forgiving. Here's to hoping my resolve will stand the test of time, but I think that if it can just stand the test of Peace Corps, it will be a magical feat.

I made butter chicken. It was amazing, which is confusing because I accidentally used adobo spice mix, not tandoori spice mix. Upon further inspection though, I don't actually have tandoori spice mix, which is, again, very frustrating.

In all honesty though, the move has been bittersweet in many ways. In the weeks leading up to leaving for the Peace Corps, I was increasingly anxious of the thought of leaving my family for 27 months, and I very vividly remember thinking of all of the milestones along the journey back to those Skip-Bo cards at the foot of my parents' bed. Just one week until I move to my training site, three more months until I swear in and move to my permanent site, three more months until I am allowed to travel, then three months after that, and I will live on my own, from there, I'm nearly halfway home. In the meantime, I'll hopefully make a visit home, or perhaps home will come to me, so really, 27 months is not that much time, right? Right, but the problem is that, the milestones I could count on have run out. Now, I've got 18 months of unknown, which both feels particularly gargantuan and particularly minuscule. It feels like both the beginning and the beginning of the end.

Anyway, all feelings and revelations aside, I am happy to finally feel that my house is actually my home. I could climb those 81 steps 100 times a day, eat dinner at 2 in the morning, or spend excessive time cleaning or super gluing my clumsiness, and still smile about it. So all that being said, please celebrate my new freedom with me today by remembering that cold temperatures are not an actual cause of sickness.