2019 was the
hardest year of my life. It was full of happiness, sadness, excitement, stress,
mental breakdowns, tiredness, and literally so many more feelings. It was
moodiest year ever.
At the beginning
of the year, I was in America and I had been there since August of the year
before, so I already had my American life all set. I really felt like the
luckiest girl in the world because I literally had everything I had ever
wanted. I had the best friends ever and I kept meeting more and more new people
every day, I had good grades in all my classes, I was challenging myself trying
out for soccer, I had the nicest boyfriend ever, and I was super confident. Plus,
I had so many attentions on me and everyone would always ask me questions and
talk to me because I was “the girl from Italy with a cute accent” (I’ve
actually learnt to like my accent because it made me different in a good way
haha). I was just the happiest all the time. Everything was so perfect😍
Around April
and May, I started to realize that I had to go back soon and that was a really hard
period. I just didn’t wanna leave everything and everyone and go back to my old
town, my old school, and basically my old life.
In May, I
had the best day of my life: PROM. I’d literally never felt so good about
myself like that day and I had never had so much fun. I got ready with my
friends that are so amazing, I was wearing a dress I loved, Katie did the best make
up for me, everyone asked me to take pictures (I took so
many pictures haha), and after getting some caffeine in, it was actually time
for the actual prom. We got in, and everyone was just so pretty and fancy. It was
so different from a night at the club like we are used to here in Italy, it was
way different, but way better. After saying hi to everyone that was there, we
danced for the whole time we were there and it was so fuuun! I’ve never thought dancing would be that fun before that day. After a couple of hours, it was time
to go home and get ready for the after prom. I’ve literally thought I was in a
movie, walking out the place with this pretty long dress, the makeup all done
(and knowing how long it took me to get ready lol), his jacket on my shoulders heading
to the car. Then we went to the after prom and once we got there, we played
games until like 3 in the morning and I laughed so muuuuch😍😂
(I just
lived that day again just writing about it, and I miss America so much haha)
Ok, let’s
get back to what we were talking about…
The end
of May was the most stressful period because I had to pack everything, get my
grades from school, get presents to bring home, send a package to Italy and
most important I had to hang out with everyone as much as I could before going
back. So, after crying a couple of times (maybe three or four) and after
graduating, I had a week left. The last days were pretty weird because I had
already done all the crying and I had already realized I had to go back, so I hang
out with all my friends for the last time, I said “see you soon” to everyone,
and I got on the plane.
The last
day, my host dad got me a large coffee from dunkin (my favorite) and then we
drove up to Chicago. While I was in the car, I was looking at every detail of
that town bc I didn’t wanna forget anything and in that moment I completely
realized I was leaving fr😭
The first
month back home was even weirder tho. I didn’t know how to speak Italian
anymore and I literally had a headache for a week or two bc I had to focus so
much on understanding and talking in a way that people could understand what I was
tryna say. The summer wasn’t
too bad, I got to see all my friends again and hang out with them, I got to
celebrate my 18th birthday and I got to go to the mountains. I was missing America so much tho. I remeber staying up until 3 am just to talk to my American friends bc of the different time zone lol😬
In September
I had my exam for which I’d studied all summer, but I wasn’t very nervous about
it. As soon as I got in that
room tho with eleven teachers looking at me and asking me questions about 11
different classes, I remembered what anxiety is and I literally forgot all I had
studied, but it is all good (as long as I don’t have to do it again) haha.
Then school
started and regardless of how much I studied my grades dropped in comparison to
the year before America.
Besides
school, I started studying for the theory driving test and that got me so stressed
since you gotta study so many boring things before passing it lol.
Besides
driving lessons, my parents started stressing me about college and I literally
had no clue what I wanted to do.
Everything
and everyone was basically stressing me out, and my mood didn’t help. I still couldn’t
adjust and the only thing I could think of was "I wish I was in America" or "this place sucks". I literally couldn’t be happy because I wanted to be the person I
was in America, but I couldn’t because as I had to adjust when I went to America, I had to adjust here in Italy. I had to find myself here and create my life here again as I did
in America. It took me a while to realize that adjusting didn’t mean “letting America
go” bc I’m still the same person.
It sounds
really weird and I don’t really know how to explain it bc I don't even know what was going on in my head lol but just try to be openminded while reading this.
So, as
that was said, around the end of November (yea pretty late), I realized I couldn't do anything about not being in America so might as well live my best life here.
In December,
I passed my theory driving test, which didn’t let me sleep the night before,
and a burden was finally taken away from me. I was so happy! Then Christmas, my favorite holiday ever, got here and to end this year right, I did new
year’s eve with my friends💥
2019
started really good and ended really good. It was just a big mess during the
summer and the fall, but we got that taken care of, so happy ending:)