Louise's thoughts

Missing California II

Today was one of those days when I just wanted to be back in California. It was presumably not the last one of those, but it was the first one since getting back to Denmark. I didn't feel I belong here, I am weird, different and have a hard time reconnecting with people. Of course everybody is all 'hi, welcome back Louise', but then the conversation fades and I get insanely jealous when I overhear people saying 'let's go to brunch on Sunday'. I want to go to brunch on Sunday, but somehow, it is not as simple as if I had been here all the time. I miss my favorite Irvine friend (he knows who he is), because it was easy to say 'lets do this and that' and there was really nothing to it; we would go out and have fun, nothing more, nothing less. Here I have to hold my breath, build up courage to ask out old friends. Or people I would like to be friends with. And then it is even more discouraging to get a 'sure, lets go out sometime' and then not hear anymore. It makes me feel that they have all the power to decide over how and when I will get a decent social life here in Denmark. Not that I don't have wonderful friends who actually do call me up, write me emails and ask if I want to go do something. But I still feel so odd in this Danish world with people who don't apologize when they bump into you, store clerks who don't look you in the eyes or say hello to you at the grocery store. It makes me think that nobody really cares about each other.

I realize that I am being totally impatient and that in two weeks things will be much better. But I am also a bit frightened that in two weeks I will be even more impatient, because I still don't go to the movies once a week (as I used to two years ago) and because I still don't have a sense of belonging to this country. In four weeks I will be depressed because I am loosing contact with my American friend without having gained new ones in Denmark and in 2 months I will have new plans of when to leave next time. So I keep telling myself that I should take initiatives instead of waiting for others to do so; I really can't blame anyone but myself. And I guess that I should cheer up and just realize that moving back is much more difficult than moving out. And stop wishing that I was in Irvine, just chatting and eating lunch with the other grad students there.