anxiety.

The fact that I’m leaving Leipzig in two weeks definitely hit me hard this morning while riding the tram to the school where I’m student teaching. As much as I’ve been trying to deny that fact, to ignore and avoid the inevitable, it’s happening soon and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m about to leave the place I’ve happily called home for the past 11 months, for good, with the possibility of never, ever coming back. While the likelihood of never, ever coming back (at least to Germany) is low, the possibility is there. Not to mention what this means for my life- I go home and graduate from college, which means no more casually jaunting about Europe, unattached, unencumbered, living only for my whims, without really giving a second thought to the future beyond what I’ll be doing at the weekend.

For the first time, I felt A REAL CRY coming on; not just the prickly feeling in my tear ducts, or that pesky lump in my throat; no, a real honest and true cry. Being that I’m sat on public transportation, surrounded by pre-teens on their way to school, I choked it back. However, at that moment I knew a virtual flood was coming. I don’t know how I’m going to handle this. As much as I’m looking forward to seeing my family and friends in Buffalo, Leipzig has become my home, and the people here are as important to me as those there. Not to mention having to leave my sister-from-a-German-mister, Annika, in Magdeburg. That’s a whole other sob story.

Not only am I sinking into depression because of my imminent leaving date, and I hate to sound whiny in my last days here, but it’s felt as though I’ve been living in a strange, German speaking city in England for the past two weeks… by which I mean I haven’t seen the sun in a fortnight. We’ve been besieged by near constant drizzle, if not full on rain. The dreary days certainly don’t contribute to a cheerful mood. If the sun was out and the temperatures were high, as I’ve been used to in Germany up until this point, at least I could be happily lounging on the beach, which always helps to erase unpleasantness from my mind. Instead I’m stuck lying about in my bedroom watching internet TV (which isn’t quite so bad since I’ve found a friend to share that with,) or biking places in the rain and exacerbating my wretched summer cold.

The other thing that’s making my last days here slightly less enjoyable is that University marches on. I thought for sure I’d be done by now, maybe with the relaxed expectation that I attend my classes once in a while or something, but no; I have 3 presentations and a 10 page paper due and my attendance is expected at every class up until practically the day I leave. So I can look forward to a stressful two weeks before my impending departure. Why the hell didn’t I push my leaving date back to August? I don’t want to go so soon. While spending a week in England is sure to be glorious, I still would rather have another week in Germany. I’m not even sure I can afford a week in London, especially if I want to spend a couple of days in New York before returning to Buffalo. I have to be really vigilant about spending here in Germany these last two weeks.

There’s so much to think about in a practical sense as well; I have to figure out a way to get my luggage to England (it’s going to be far to heavy to send on Ryan Air) which means mailing it to Kate’s, not to mention the packing itself which will of course be a bear, and then there’re train/Mitfahgelegenheit arrangements to Berlin to make, and UGH, it’s just too damn much!