I don't know why I've found it horrifically difficult to update over here. I find I'm always second-guessing myself... what I feel, what I want to feel, what I'm afraid I might be pretending to feel.

This is still not an update, and I know it's cheating, but incomprehensible though it may be, I don't think I could put it better than I did in an email to Lani and Josh yesterday.

Well, it's always somewhat hard for me to put my feelings into words, because on the one hand things are overwhelmingly wonderful, and on the other, I think I'm more homesick than I'm allowing myself to deal with. And I'm just afraid at some point it's going to hit me and I will be just immobilizingly lonely... Well, somewhere between the gushing I'm apt to lapse into and the terrifying bleakness I'm afraid of falling into lies the truth about Lauren in the Netherlands. Perhaps, if you could call this an emotion, the best way to describe how I feel is "self-sufficient" or "self-contained" -- basically I am taking care of business, doing my thing, keeping up, and staying busy. I surprise myself with just how ready for anything I am, and that is no small thing; but as for legitimately feeling anything, I must confess that I don't, really, either way, and I could say that starts to scare me, but I'll just start getting circular and tiresome and I'll leave it at that, such as it may be.

It scares me to feel so fine, and I'm deeply disturbed by how normal, how average things are. Yes - a million things are different in Europe, and the scenery is more beautiful, and the shops are somewhat more human. I wasn't expecting something extraordinary out of Europe or Europeans -- I was expecting to feel extraordinarily different. But, it seems, life just goes on.

I've met people and I've gone places, I've journalled, and observed, and participated. There's nothing holding me back -- I've done what I wanted when I wanted... It seems I've forgotten how to have an experience; indeed, how to feel much of anything at all..

And maybe it's that -- while I am not really very homesick and while I do not really see myself forming meaningful relationships here -- maybe, even if all that's true, I still cannot feel deeply even in a chosen, preferred solitude... Oh, maybe even if you're deeply in love with yourself and the sky, there's got to be something more.

Well I don't know what I believe or feel and it seems every time I start to talk I'm lying or missing the point.

But -- I'm good here. And I love the town, I love my classes, and I more than tolerate at least a handful of people. Things are good. Which is to me more irritating than a colossal failure, but to all who know me, and care that I'm having a good time, I am. Good.

And so I need to do a little preliminary research for a jaunt to the Hague tomorrow, which will inevitably be beautiful, impressive, and enjoyable, but not terribly inspiring.

It's a familiar refrain and getting more inane: wish for something different, and get more of the same.
Matt Keating