Closing in on me

You know, I try to suppress my feelings. I see people expressing them every day and all I can see is how they just make trouble. I don't like trouble. So I keep my feelings to myself. It's sort of my defense mechanism. If I tell myself I don't care enough, I start to really not care.

But lately things have been piling up. I'll be watching a show and see something like poptarts and realize that I miss them, because there's no such thing as poptarts in Austria. Or Oreos. They do have Oreos in Austria, but not how I remember them. They have the snack packs, but I want the big boxes with the rolls of Oreos in them, just because that's how I used to eat them.

I miss milk. It seems weird. There's milk everywhere, right? But it doesn't taste the same. I just like it more in America. In America, I could drink glass after glass of milk, but here, I can't even take one sip without cringing. They have light and they have normal milk, and there are no gallons, just boxes.

I miss the way everything looked back home. The trees were different, it smelled different, the streets, the houses, the people...it was all different. All normal, and this, here...it's alien and I don't like it.

Sure, Austria is beautiful. Anyone who visits will tell you that. But they don't have to live here every day. They're just on vacation. They only see the beautiful parts because it's all they want to see. They tell me I'm so lucky to live in this country, that I take it for granted. But don't they realize that while they're here for a week, they start to want to go home? Don't they connect the dots when I tell them I miss living in America? Don't they think about it at all? Maybe I miss America. Maybe I want to go home. Do they think about it?

Do they even consider that maybe I don't want to be bilingual. Maybe I don't want to be ahead of all the others. Maybe I don't want to learn French and Italian and Spanish and German and Latin and all these languages. Maybe I just want to stay ignorant and speak English and live in America and have a life just like everyone else.

Maybe I don't want to be different. Maybe I don't want to stand out. Maybe I want to have a boring life in a boring town with boring people.

But no one asks me what I want. My wants and needs are unimportant.

True. I can live without material things like poptarts, oreos and milk. But to separate me from my family is cruel. To cut off my ability to see the people I love regularly is abuse. To know that when they get together, I can't go is murder. I want to see my family.

I want them. I need them. I can't live without them. It's hard. And I try not to show it. I try not to get in trouble.

But it doesn't work. It just doesn't. You can't just tell me to stop missing them, because I won't. You can't flip a switch and turn the hurt off, because it won't stop. You can't think I'm going to be ok if you take away the one thing worth living for, because I'm not.

I want to go home. I want to see my family. I want to be close to them. I want to stop hurting. I want to see my family grow bigger. I want to be there for them. I want to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with them. I want to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. I want to be a part of their lives and I want to do it in person and not just over the computer or phone.

I want to be there, not here.

I don't want pity comments. I don't want advice. I don't want to heard a goddamn thing about how I shouldn't dwell on this. Because you just don't know how it feels. You can try, but you still won't know. You can think you do, but you don't. I don't want anyone to tell me to calm down. I don't want to hear that I'm exaggerating. I don't want to hear that you miss me. You don't know the meaning of it. You're not cut off from everyone single person you love and forced to start anew. You just don't know.