Why I stopped writing ☁️
Getting everything out of my system
I wrote my last entry exactly 72 days ago. I managed to write semi-consistently for less than a month, from the day I traveled to the US until I got settled into the routine of being in Raleigh. Then, my mind couldn’t do it any longer.
I will admit that this semester has not been what I expected. I was excited about traveling to the United States after the desire to see it grew in me for so long. I was ready to learn so much about literature, particularly what I could not have learned back in Denmark. And I was excited to explore a new place.
The truth is that these past months have been more pain than joy.
I had some sleeping issues for the first 2 months of my stay, and not sleeping well affected my focus, my retention, and my mood. I had to change room to fix that and I regret not thinking about doing it earlier.
I learned so much in taking four courses, but my mental health suffered for it. The amount of books and articles to read was definitely too much with one extra course. Three of them would already have been demanding, but this being my last studying semester before I write my thesis pushed me to do extra work. I wasn’t kind to myself.
My imposter syndrome accompanied me throughout the whole experience. Particularly in my American Literature course, where I was one of the two non-Americans. I didn’t get most of the historical references that were mentioned in class and didn’t know so many names that bounced from one corner of the room to the other. And learning new things was exactly what I wanted for this experience. What I didn’t want was feeling I was behind compared to everyone else, or thinking I couldn’t contribute to a class of people that had so much more knowledge than me.
Next, there’s the problem of mobility. Raleigh is not a place for walkers. You need a car to go around (or a lot of money to pay for Uber drives.) Most of the time, I stayed inside the border of campus, going from my room to class to my room. I barely socialized with people and spent most of my time studying.
Safety was another big concern of mine. Receiving emails and notifications about shootings happening not too far from campus or having to watch a gun-safety video to understand how to behave in case of a shooter coming inside a building didn’t allow me to feel safe around the city. I had an anxiety attack going to a bigger-than-usual supermarket and, only once inside, remembering how accessible guns are and how supermarkets are the perfect settings for bad news. I started getting my groceries delivered after that.
All these things on my mind didn’t help in making the experience the best one possible. Today, after booking my flight ticket to go back to Denmark, I felt a bit nostalgic at the thought of only having 28 days left to make this semester count. But I also realized that not every experience is a good one, even in the country your teenage-self dreamt about.
After I stopped writing it, I considered this online journal a failure. This entry will be one of the last ones. But I will keep it online exactly for the purpose I started it: going back to it and reading about this experience. While it won’t be exactly as I imagined it, with an extensive collection of retelling of my four months here, it will remind me of my strength in going on, the focus I put in my academic life here despite the struggles, and the good people I met and hopefully will keep in my life after I’m gone.