Update On The Decision Making Process

So about 2-3 months ago I wrote a post asking people to just back off and stop asking me what I am going to be doing in 2010. I was thinking about it a lot and really stressed about it. Then, post-blogpost (writing post-post there just doesn't work...) I lost the stress. I poured a lot of energy into my team and frisbee and started to just enjoy all that the Netherlands has to offer.

HOWEVER, the last few weeks (particularly since last week and watching the UPA championships), my move has been back on my mind. So much so that I am not really even sleeping so well (that has never happened to me before, I don't think). Most of the time I just lie (lay? WHY DONT I KNOW THIS?) in bed and imagine the different scenarios that I think my life would look like in each city that I could go to. I briefly took the Bay Area out as one of the options, but after watching Fury last week, it's definitely back in there! So I stare into the darkness and think, "well - this is what it would look like here. And this here. And this here."

The funny part about this is that I don't really have any idea how my life would look in any of the places I would go. In the Bay and Atlanta, I mostly imagine what my life was like before I left those cities. But, especially with Atlanta, that was a long time ago, and I am a different version of me now than I was then. So would I really be the same? I am not really sure. I sortof also can idealize how it would be with good friends I have there. But, while I do a fairly good job of staying in contact with a lot of them, we all have changed. And I don't know if I would fit in in the way I would expect to if I came back. If I go back to the Bay, I still have the same issues with it that I have always had: it's expensive, it's spread out and people don't stay there for a long time (which doesn't really fit with the longings I am having right now to be in a community for a while with the same people).

I have a lot harder time imaging what my life would be like here in the Netherlands if I stay here and start my masters in the spring. I think that sometimes I tell myself that, since I can't imagine it, it must mean that it isn't a viable option for me. But, as I'm writing this down, I think it has a lot more to do with that option being the one with the most unknowns. I would be getting a masters. I would be studying in a different system than I have studied in. I would be living 2 hours away from my team and would have to make the decision to either commute to play with them or play with the coed team that would be in my new hometown. I would be living in a small college town/city (something I haven't done since I lived in Chattanooga when I was 20). I would be living in the same city with my boyfriend for the first time in our relationship. I would be in a program with primarily Dutch students. I would be living with Dutch people (probably people I don't know). It's a lot. And I think that, because I am having these longings for community and familiarity, it's hard for me to think about stepping into the unknown right now. Unknown = a longer time before I feel settled enough to branch out and really start to form a real community.

Right now I am trying to listen to so many voices in my head that I am exhausted. And trying to also listen to more than just what my head is saying. Right now, my heart is saying, "Get back in U.S. frisbee! You love that community! That is where you feel most like you belong!" But I am just still not sure. I don't know if I would feel like I am taking a step back. I don't want to do that. I want to take a step forward into the newest best version of me. I just am not sure where I want to become the newest best version of me.