Right now, I’m sitting on the train from
Hannover to Göttingen – yes, the same Göttingen where Gauß was (my math fangirl
self is really excited!). In Göttingen, I will meet with a friend of Claudia’s
who has also become a friend of mine and who is studying physics at the
university there. For the past two years, he has boasted about the Döner at a
certain shop in Göttingen and how they are the best there that he’s ever tasted
– even better than our dear Dönerstag, which he tried when he came to visit C
and myself last year. But I was in Hannover to see Jiska, the one who was an
exchange student in Thailand and actually in Surat Thani, the city where I was.
Jiska and I have managed to see each other
several times since Thailand, which is just fantastic. I saw her immediately
after we came back from Thailand when I went to visit Claudia for the first
time and the summer after we managed to connect as well, and last year, she
came on very short notice to Mainz for my birthday party. Last year’s visit was
particularly short and I am so glad that I decided to go for it this time to
see her – I went to Hanover on Sunday and we spent all day yesterday talking
and now I’m heading back today – I suppose a day and a half doesn’t seem like
much, but – I don’t quite know how to explain it. Several times during the
weekend, we pondered why it was that we had remained so close even though we
don’t talk regularly and seeing each other more than once in a year is
remarkable. And the conclusion we finally came to was this: we got to know each
other under such extreme circumstances (15 and 16 years old, staying with host
families in a country we knew nothing about and with each other as the only
real outlets for talking) that somehow, all the surface level garbage that
makes up most every day conversations was never part of our discourse. I
remarked yesterday to her that she doesn’t know much about my everyday life
(how could she, when we talk so rarely and live so far apart) but – she knows
all of the important stuff. And the same goes for her.
To put it briefly, it was incredibly
refreshing to see her. It reminded me of where I was six years ago and where I
am now, what’s happened in between, what was important about what happened in
between, and it even helped me know a bit more about what I actually want. A
good friend is worth so much.
--
Have you ever experienced this? I am having
this experience now which is rather interesting. I think it’s a common human
trait to set goals for oneself – big ones, small ones, whatever. And you can be
completely adamant about these goals, totally set on changing your habits or
whatever it may be – and still, often you have to set these goals again and
again because you fall short. I know I tend to be very vague or cryptic at
times like this, so I’ll try to be more concrete. Say you’ve promised yourself
that in certain situations, you’re going to change how you act. For example,
you’ve decided not to be mean to a certain person who annoys you. And even though
you promise this, the next time you see that person, you’re still mean to them.
And you come home from that interaction, think “damn. I thought I wasn’t going
to do that anymore.” And so you try again, and still you mess up, or you don’t
do as well as you’d like. This is the situation I’m in, though it’s abit more
complicated than “not being mean” to someone. It’s more to do with my own
confidence in situations. To use a phrase I learned this weekend, it’s about my
competence matching my performance in any given situation. And for ages, I’ve
told myself to stop worrying about the damn confidence, to just be me, damn it.
For years I’ve told myself that. Sometimes it works, for maybe a few days at a
time, and then it stops again. And --- on this trip, all of a sudden (this is
what I was asking about, has this particular part happened to anyone) – that
problem is gone. But it doesn’t feel like it did before – the times before when
I managed to not worry about my behavior it felt exciting, new, rare. And because
of that, I knew it wasn’t lasting. And all of a sudden – it’s normal. It’s how
I act. I feel comfortable and confident and – this clarity is incredible.
--
Whoa, there.
This was an emotional post. Very much inside my own head and writing it helps
me understand it, but it might not be interesting for you! No worries. That’s
why I’m also going to post some pictures from this trip. A picture from an
iPhone through a train window can’t quite capture this silent, cold and crisp
landscape, but I tried my best and I think some of them came through quite
well.
No comments:
Post a Comment