The Ghosts of June Present: 2016 Edition

It seems there's always something to worry about, isn't there? Worrying is one of those very human traits that we just can't seem to get rid of.

At about this time a year ago, I wrote a post about the random worries I'd been plagued with in the past, and how insignificant they seemed from where I was standing in June 2015.

Well, now that another year has gone by and June 2016 is over and done with, I feel like it might be nice to continue the trend of laughing at my silly past self. She wasted so much time worrying about such insignificant things that turned out just fine!  I'd also like to provide fodder for my future self to do much the same. I'll always have worries, but knowing that future me will be here laughing at them at this time next year (or in five years, or ten...) makes them seem less scary in the present, and it's always nice to be reminded of that.

So, Future!Alisa and Past!Alisa, this one's for you.

At this time last year, I was just about to leave Europe for the last time and make the big move back to the United States, for good. Understandably, I was rather nervous about this. I had no job lined up and no idea where I really wanted to live. I also had next to no money, and I was craving the stability that I'd been without since I'd moved away from home eight years before. These last two things, in particular, set the stage for where I find myself now, in June 2016. So did my worries about being jobless and homeless come true?

2016

I have just finished my first year as a Spanish teacher in my hometown in the States, and I'm currently on summer break. I'm spending my time planning a big trip to a new area of the world for me--Oceania! I'm very excited to finally be traveling abroad again after almost a full year of not leaving the USA. If I were to tell my teenage self that not quite ten years after making my great escape into the big wide world, I would find myself living not only in the town where I was born but also in the very house where I grew up, she would probably cry out in disbelief. Yet here I am. While it's never where I'd have pictured myself in a million years, I have to admit that it's not all that bad. A year ago I was craving stability, and it turns out that stability DOES feel really good. Having a steady job and not having to constantly stress about money is nice! Am I rich? No. Do I want to live in my parents' house forever? No way. But this year of being able to see my family and old friends whenever I want and not having to worry about moving halfway across the world or searching for a job was good for me, I think. This is the first summer in ten years that I haven't had to move myself and all my belongings between 2100km and 6700km (1300 and 4100 miles) across land and sea. Not having that kind of stress in my life has been really calming. While I'm still bursting at the seams with wanderlust, knowing that I have a steady home and job to come back to makes the idea of traveling seem more like fun and less like work!

Struggles: Trying to plan a long vacation in some of the more expensive countries in the world without spending ALL my savings, making new lesson plans for next year that improve upon those from this year (and they say that teachers have the whole summer off, pfft)

Fears: That I will crash into another car while trying to drive on the WRONG side of the road in Australia or New Zealand and kill someone à la Matthew Broderick except that I am NOT Ferris Bueller and will most certainly go to jail for my crimes (paranoid much?), that I will never meet an interesting gentleman caller in my tiny hometown where most people my age are married and/or do not share my main passions in life (namely, travel and foreign cultures)

Hopes for the next year: To find a way to move out on my own again, to join clubs and activities where I will meet interesting people in my town and make some new friends, to practice my foreign language skills more so they don't atrophy

So there we have it, the ghosts of June Present: 2016 Edition. I'm just as much of a worrywart as ever, but I also feel more equipped than ever to handle my problems with aplomb. For most of these issues, I know the solutions, I just have to find the right time and place to employ them. It's certainly easier than facing the great wide unknown. What a relief!

How I Accidentally Realized My Childhood Dream of Being an Expat Writer

When the soul of a man is born...there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.
-James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

I've always liked the word expatriate. It sang to me when I was a teenager, when I was moody and idealistic and very annoyed by the war in Iraq. I don't think I actually knew how to spell the word at the time, and so I thought of it as someone who used to be a patriot, and no longer was. Ex-patriot. They sound exactly the same, after all. I felt that this word described me perfectly, as someone who felt overwhelmed and saddened by the overly patriotic belief in America's supremacy that the country was full of at that time, in backlash to the September 11th attacks.

I was quite the romantic kid, as well as being probably the biggest bookworm you've ever seen. I could never be found without a book stashed away somewhere, including when I was out in public. I brought books to restaurants, to parties, even sometimes to the movies. Never let it be said that I'm not a nerd! So it's probably not surprising that by the time I was a teenager I'd devoured many works by the members of the Lost Generation (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, etc.), many of whom were expatriates in Paris during the 1920s. I highly romanticized these writers and their lifestyle, imagining them sitting in cafés along the banks of the Seine, drinking coffee and discussing important ideas.

I longed to be a writer back then, to move to France and share my ideas with others who were like me. To be able to call myself an expatriate, that magical word that seemed to encompass everything that I was and wished to be.

Little punk...

Ever since I've actually become an expatriate, however, that word has lost something of its charm, as I've struggled through language difficulties, loneliness, and strange foreign customs. I'd long ago given up those romantic dreams of being an expat writer, preferring a more practical route, even as I do travel the world.

And yet, something has kept me writing for all these years. I have more handwritten journals detailing my adventures than I care to admit, in addition to several online places (including this one) where I let my thoughts spill out.

Some song I was listening to the other day enticed my thoughts to time travel back to my teen years, and I had a sudden realization. I thought I'd given up my dreams of being an expat writer like Hemingway. But somehow, without even trying to, I've been following bits of his path throughout Europe, from the running of the bulls in Pamplona to the beaches of Normandy to studying about the Spanish Civil War here in Alcalá. And all the time, I've been writing about it. Maybe not publicly, maybe not well, but I have been.

The Running of the Bulls, 2009

American Cemetery in Normandy, 2014

So what exactly makes me NOT an expatriate writer? What about my life, about me being an expatriate and writing all the time about it, means that that dream is dead?

Absolutely nothing, I've realized.

I started writing on a regular schedule in Alisabroad this year just to see if I could. It was more an exercise of my willpower and commitment, a way to get myself out of the rut I've been stuck in for about a year, than any out of actual dedication to bettering the blog. I thought that my writing might get better as I practiced it more, and that sounded great, but I never really cared about if the blog got more views, if people liked it or not.

It's been a wonderful side product of writing consistently that my family and friends know more about what's going on in my life these past few months, that I feel just a little more connected with them through posting more often. But as I said last week, that doesn't keep me from feeling lonely, or like most people just don't get the difficulties I'm going through.

So, if I've decided I'm in fact an expat writer just like I always dreamed of (even if it's not my day job and probably never will be), why not do it really well? Why not find that group of fellow writers to discuss my ideas and drink coffee with?

Coffee for one IS a little lonely sometimes...

So, even though I'm still mostly writing in here for myself, rather than to please my demanding public readers, I've decided to make a real commitment to Alisabroad this year. And part of that commitment is going to involve me networking and making new friends with my fellow bloggers.

So that's why I'm pleased to announce that this May, I'm going to my first-ever blogging conference! I will be an official attendee of TBEX (Travel Blog EXchange) Europe 2015 in Costa Brava, Spain. This conference was recommended to me by a friend who works at my school, and it's super convenient, since she and her husband are also going, it's a short train ride away, and it falls on a long weekend from school. There is literally no reason for me NOT to go and learn about this whole new world of people who blog for a living, so I am!

I'm super excited that I'm going to be learning new things, meeting new people, and probably seeing lots of high-quality photos of pretty places. Even if I don't think I ever want to turn this blog into a full-time job, it will be a fascinating new world to dive into, and I can't wait!

Will any bloggers I know be there??