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How to Have a Breakdown Without Really Trying

By rlubitz

To prepare for my impending departure I’m having a very slight, slow breakdown both physically and mentally. It’s going to be a while before I leave Europe, I’ll be going on a 2-week mega adventure with my mom between now and then. Think The Amazing Race except it’s me and my little mama trying to not get mugged the entire time. I see hilarity ensuing and hopefully I can update you here on that.

But I’m in the middle of final paper time and my body is completely shutting down. I set my alarm every day for 9am and I can’t seem to wake up before noon. It’s not that I’m all that tired but it’s that there’s an entire season of Freaks and Geeks online and it trumps sleep every single night. I’m making pretty much 0 progress on papers now, instead choosing to wake up late and think of all the things I’m not going to see when I’m really gone. (grim, right?)

But when I do leave here on January 2nd, I’m not going to be okay with it. At all. I don’t get homesick ever and I haven’t yet and I’m dreading getting back into the real world filled with responsibilities and DC harassment. It’s tough to be a woman in America and I’ve realized that more than anything while being here.

What I’m going to do is cry and cry a lot. I MAY be partaking in some liquid courage before the flight just to get on. That scene in Bridesmaids will probably be a good indication of my behavior. Running around the airport screaming at people trying to find out where my terminal heads with, maybe, my pants on my head.

I’m spending New Years here and I expect massive tears to happen. I expect myself to start crying in a store out of the blue, as I like to do, and have to tell people that I’m pregnant or something.

*looks at a lamp in store that looks slightly American*  *loses it*

On my return home I’ll be digging myself into a hole while people insist on talking about how awesome the last three and a half months of my life as been. And it has been awesome. Cooler than anything I’ve ever done in my entire life and I know I’ll never be able to get it back.

You know what’s awesome right now? RIGHT NOW, as I’m writing this that very very very very very VERY depressing song by the Counting Crows from Cruel Intentions is on in this tea shop. It’s from the scene that everyone cries in, where Ryan Phillippe is waiting at the top of the escalator and all of the girls in the theatre when that happened had a massive emotional stroke. Well this is cool.

Getting back to reality, I miss some dumb American food and my friends and that’s it. So going back will kind of be the worst.

I’ll get through it though, remembering that I’m only 20 and I have my life to come back here. I’ll be turning 21 the next day, on January 3rd, and I am absolutely going to take advantage of that. I’m a lucky, lucky girl.

So besides me having an emotional breakdown while watching fireworks over the Thames *cries a little at the thought* I really need to do some of the basic London-y stuff in like three days. I’m looking forward to that.

Then it’s on through Europe where I’ll be going through France, Spain, Italy, Austria and Switzerland. We’re doing it by train which is exciting because I’m a real American and I think trains are the just the coolest. I’m going to ask a lot of dumb questions along the way and get a lot of real answers and hopefully eat a cannoli in front of the Trevi fountain again and have a very Vienna Christmas. I’ve never done anything like this before because I don’t own a fur coat and I’ve never considered myself an InTeRnAtIoNaL person. The fate before me is the most exciting part of all.

I just want everyone to know that I’ve loved my time here more than anything and I’m okay with crying in public over the next few days. I’ve gotta eat a million digestives to fill the hole in my heart that’s growing but that’s alright because they’re extremely good!

So onward, upward, even if I’m kicking and screaming this has been a blast. Anyone who tells you they miss home whilst living in London is a psychopath.