The difficult part is that the things that make me happy lately are the very things that people keep telling me will make me unhappy, and vice versa. Being alone, drinking coffee and thinking, brings me more peace than anything else. Spending time with friends from school, however, makes me anxious and upset if done for extended periods of time. Everyone (especially anya) keeps telling me to go out more, spend time with people, and I do sometimes, at school usually. Outside of school, I never want to. I just want my space, which is hard when, whenever I'm by myself, I feel guilty for not being with other people. I'm beginning to wonder if there's such a thing as being too independent, especially when it comes to exchange.
In Canada, if I spent time with anyone, it was Courtney, usually. She was always the one person I could be with and feel perfectly at ease. It was like being with another version of myself. She is halfway around the world and as much as I want to talk with her sometimes, I understand why people caution against talking too much with people back home. My parents were also people I felt comfortable spending large amounts of time with. Again, the issue is the same.
I was having a good time for a couple of days there - my host family took me on a trip across the country for a couple of days (weird, driving across a country in a day...). I'll post more about that later. It was fun, relaxing. I didn't feel pressured to do or be anything. Almost immediately after getting back, that feeling went away and I went back to feeling stressed and uncomfortable.
Anya has been pressuring me to be more social, and I truly want to, even if it is just to make her happy. Mostly I just don't know how to explain to her that I'm not a social person. I'm not shy. Not remotely. I just find more pleasure in solitude than with others, especially teenagers. The people my age in Dabas tend to spend a lot of time drinking and smoking; things I rarely do, if ever. There's also the unfortunate language barrier, which I'm doing my best to overcome, but I've only been here two months.
I'm fairly certain it was also anya's idea to enlist Bence, her nephew, to befriend me. I appreciate the thought, I think. He's nice enough, I guess, but Hungarian guys are, at best, attentive, and at worst... Well, that's not the point. The point is that now I have a new friend forced on me, one that I have to be with if I want to take the bus to school - which I have to now that it's cold and rainy - and who's insistent that I can't do anything for myself and need to be escorted everywhere I go. It's condescending and suffocating.
Anya isn't the only one who thinks I must be lonely. My second or third day here, one of my teachers tried to lecture me on what I was doing wrong. She didn't like that I read a lot, she said it made me look closed off. I think it makes me look more appealing to people that I want to hang out with, i.e. book lovers. Another thing that I think doesn't help is that when people ask 'how are you?' here, they actually want to know how I am, and, as a rule, I don't tell people how I am. I say 'fine', they think I'm rude because I haven't pulled out my diary, and so my air of being 'closed off' continues. I've had people complain to me about my doing this as well. Hungarians aren't shy about voicing their negative opinions of you. I'm not complaining, it's just how they are, but you can only hear what you're doing wrong so many times before it gets to you.
This sounds harsh, I know, but it's been bugging me for some time and I'm just now getting it off my chest in the only way I know how: writing. They're openness and honesty are some of the things that I love most about the Hungarian people, as well. There isn't so much bullshit here as there is back home. With Hungarians, what you see is what you get. Thing is, I've gotten quite good at honest to goodness bullshitting, and I hate to think that my skills are being wasted or worse, getting rusty. The people here say what's on their mind. Even if they're shy, they say what they think, and there's something to be admired in that. They're friendly people, and everything I've described here is their way of trying to help, I get that. Problem is, it's not helping, it's making things worse, because more than ever, I want to hide in my room, drink coffee by myself, and/or put my headphones in and play my music too loud.
I'm not writing this to worry anyone. If anything, I feel no worse than I ever did at home (which, yes, I know, mom and dad, that was never excellent, but that's another conversation entirely). What I mean is, I'm here, and maybe I'm unhappy, but I'd rather be in Hungary and unhappy than at home, unhappy.
The thing is (and I keep meaning to end this post so sorry if it's getting a little long), I have to keep doing the things that make me happy, even if they aren't the things that people think I should be doing necessarily. I can't force myself to be something I'm not, I can only be myself. I can grow and change who I am by expanding my horizons and doing things I'm not comfortable with, but not all the time. There needs to be give and take, I need to walk before I can run and - if I can fit just one more cliché in here - it's all a balancing act. Maybe I can fit in. Eventually. Just give me time.
Yours always,
Moira
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