Deep ponderings...

There really isn't a lot to report on my end this week. I'm plugging along at the UN - working on electronic signature and e-commerce stuff for one of the lawyers. Trying to get additional paragraphs drafted for a reference document that was started in April and needs additions. It's a lot of sifting through piles of information that I've accumulated. I've decided my strength is the finding of the information, not so much in the sorting of the information. And so it goes...Victoria and I had dinner with Vanessa over at Victoria's place last night which was fun.

I've been pondering my life, again (gasp! Not again!). I was talking to Nancy today - who is amazing. Nancy works on the same floor doing something with radioactive waste (not really clear on what it is that they do there, but OK). She's American and married an Austrian - thus lives here. She's lived in Austria for 26 years. I asked her if she considers Austria home, and she said no. It's where she lives, it's where she works, but it's not "home." I often think I could live and work abroad, but I think that I would miss home. Today was one of those days. I'm not ready to go home for good - and odds are high that when I get there, I'll want to be right back in Europe doing this (because I am fickle that way!!). But today, I wanted to take a vacation and go home for about a week. That is exactly what I need to get perspective, then come back. I love being over here. I love it that I'm doing what I'm doing (still seems surreal at times because I spent so much time in the planning that now the doing is too stunning). I just miss the familiarity of home sometimes.

I'm getting really accustomed to being in Austria. I know where things are, I'm finding my way to the stores that I like and the areas of town that I find enjoyable. I'm carving a little place here. But it all still feels so transient. Today was a weird day. I think that it isn't so much that I want to go HOME as it is that I need desperately to feel connected to people and I didn't feel that way today. Today I felt disconnected. I wanted coffee and bagels with Sara and 2 hours of Law and Order with Leah. I wanted intelligent conversation with Mathea. I wanted to wander around a Target and enjoy all the Halloween stuff that is sure to be put out. I wanted to stop in at Billy Mitch and talk to all the people I know there and feel the warmth of having people know me. I miss all that and today it was exceptionally difficult. I recognize that if you lived in a place for awhile, you would eventually develop a social support network...and that I haven't been here long enough to get that set in. I didn't have it right off the bat in MN and I managed to survive. I had been in MN for 1.5 years before I met Leah and even longer for Sara. But still...that didn't help today. It also makes me question the intelligence of moving away from MN - maybe I do belong there and I haven't given it a real chance. Blamed my restlessness on the state & not on me.