Life has, indeed, been a rollercoaster ride for me as my mood and attitude towards the uncertainty of my future has been constantly changing from day to day in the past few weeks.
After I wrote that freaked-out post circa two weeks ago, I gathered myself more or less and went to work. By the time I had taken the three bus stops and the five minute walk to the language school, and I was talking to my so-called boss as I was waiting for that student of mine who is always late no less than twenty minutes, I realized that I just could not quit. There's no way I would leave my job, or leave the city or the dorm for that matter, for - as cheesy as it may sound - I love them with all of my heart. As I was standing there making silly small talk, it hit me how much I love my job, how much I enjoy teaching and the general atmosphere of the language school. I would be a fool to quit a job that I enjoy this much, that is this convenient, that is as close to not feeling like a job as it can get, as a matter of fact. I would be a fool to quit, especially in these days of such horrible economics, and move back to Miskolc where unemployment and poverty are in an even worse shape than in Budapest. I would be a fool to move back into a town where I hardly know anybody, where I hardly have a friend, where there's no life, no culture, no entertainment, no nothing. I would fall into deep depression in no time, that's for sure. I would suffer like hell, and would not be able to see the way out from the ever-so deepening pit.
I love Budapest, I breath Budapest, I need Budapest. She makes me happy, she is the thing that pours all that life and light into me. There's no way I could leave a place like this. There's no way I could give up a love like this.
And so I changed my mind about moving home. I decided to stick it out with Budapest. This time I will not give up when times get tough, this time I am not gonna give in and run home like I did four and a half years ago when all of a sudden I became home- and jobless in the mist of a humid, rainy spring in London. At that time I got so scared and had gained so much bad experience that the best option, well, the only option, was buying a flight ticket and run home ASAP. And so I did. And never returned, even though I ached for classy and beautiful London for so many months. Well, this time the situation is almost as tough, but this time Lessie will not be running home so fast.
So after work I went back to the dorm, and talked to a few people who either could help me putting a roof over my head in September when I shall be officially homeless or who are in the exact same position as I am - are homeless themselves until they are officially accepted back into the dorm as permanent residents. It turned out that I was not alone with my problem, there are other people who are struggling as much as I am and who are trying to make it work somehow. So I will give it a try too. After all, nobody said it was easy. No one ever said it would be this hard. But maybe, trying a little harder, not chickening out, I could make things a little less hard.
I am not going to quit my job, I am not going to move home, I am going to stick it out, and fight until all hell breaks lose. I may need a little help from my friends though, since I don't know how to do it any better just on my own. I'm just going to have to depend on them this time. I may not like it, may not want to do it this way, it actually may be the last thing I would ever be willing to do - I mean hellooo, I am the single daughter of a single parent who's been fed, clothed, and educated since she was 3 by no one else than her hardworking mother without any help from anyone, and for whom the core values are personal freedom and independence - but I don't have any other choice right now. So in September I will have to crash here and there, and hope that I will have roof over my head and some sort of a bed under my butt every night.
Oh, boy, did making this decision relief a hell of a lot of anxiety in me! All of a sudden things became calm and peaceful again, and I could go back into procrastinating mode and enjoy the just returned summer days in Budapest - especially with all that freetime on my hands as I had hardly an lessons to give. In those days I admired roaming the streets day and night like we owned the town, hopping on and off of yellow, stale aired trams, drinking beer, sitting in old but ever so comfortable armchairs in hipster cafes, sipping cups of sweet and smooth melanges and listening to the humming noice of the fan in the background while the heat was unbearable on the streets of the city, hitting independent, foreign language bookstores as tiny as my palm and browsing books for hours, buying volumes and wasting money just because I felt like it, taking photos of pretty little nonsenses and grand cliches so we could pretend to be tourists any time we want, going to yet another Szabó Balázs concert so we could feel that boldog a vérkép and shout at the top of our lungs szívem milyen kemény, szívem milyen kemény neked, then whisper from the deepest of our souls- or what's left of it- that rebbenő szemmel ülök a fényben and lélek vagyok, élni szeretnék.
And then, during the extatic moments of applause it hit me: I am a soul, and I am alive, more than I have ever been because I am here, I am free, making the most of it, trying my best, sucking as much marrow out of life as I can. And I would not change it, not even for all the tea in China, because this is it, this is where I have always wanted to be, this is what I have always imagined for myself: I am free and reckless, I am seizing the days, never caring about the tomorrows, not minding that I'll have to live on memories when I run out of bread and coffee. I am living, eating, sleeping, and drinking life, I burn, burn, burn like a thousand yellow Roman candles, okay, maybe not a thousand, maybe only a dozen, still I provide plenty of light. And after all, our twenties are the best years of our lives, cause we are young and reckless, and freedom and books and music and coffee and beer are plenty of enough to live on when you live in the city, in the middle of the world.
I may be screwed up and broke, and could not be any further from perfection, yet, I don't think I could be anything other than me, because I have always wanted to be like this, sometimes carefree, sometimes careless, living large - in that good old bittersweet Hungarian way I love and enjoy so much: being young, still believing that I can be anything I want to be, knowing that I will end up where I am supposed to do: living even larger, more free and independent. And then I also realize that freedom and indepence come with a great amount of risk and uncertainty. Freedom might be liberating, but it is never safe. If I should ever seek security, I must give up looking for freedom and settle for strings, for freedom and security never come in the same package, but liberty and uncertainty do.
They may have been delirious with joy, those days of peace and procrastination went by fast, and on Tuesday evening, as I was packing my unneeded stuff to be dragged home, reality and anxiety hit me in the face again. I kept thinking about tiny details of how I am going to make it through September being homeless and all, and hour by hour I kept chickening out even more. Then came the days of a hardly bearable, horrible migraine, and bouts of anxiety. By Friday all I could think about was giving in and giving up. I imagined myself lying down on the hot, bare ground of an enormous field, sun shining, heat burning, sweatdrops rolling down on every curvy part of my body, light going out my mind, dying, dying, dying, like one tiny little yellow candle, ever so slowly.
But then, after hours and hours of suffering, after I hit rock buttom, the rollercoaster started going upwards again, and I found myself pissed for being such a coward chicken, for giving up so easily. But I was not pissed only at myself but at life too. All I felt like doing was yelling at the top of my lung:
FUCK YOU, LIFE! I am twenty-four years old and I have NOTHING to lose. I am way too young to spend my days worrying, to play it safe and not take any risks because of my cowardice. I may have to go down, but then I'm gonna go down like a boss. So bring it on, bitch. You ain't gonna make me shit my pants. Bring it on, bring it on all you've got, I'm gonna look you in the face, and take whatever you've got for me. If you decide to throw lemons at me, then fine, let them be lemons. But you better hand me at least a dozen of them, cause I am not only going to suck out all of the vitamin C and yell EAT THAT, LIFE!, but I'm going to make lemonade too, then find somebody with a bottle of vodka, ask for tequilla and salt too, and have one hell of a party with my friends. Now how does that sound for a plan, bitch?!
Cause that's how I roll.
And now, after I settled things with life, I am alright, it's all peace and quite around here, I am back to being me, free and reckless. I am going back to Budapest tomorrow evening, I am still kind of homeless, and I only hope that things will turn out at least okay-ish for me. And if not, then... well, then we will see. And after we have seen it all, we are going to have that hell of a party with all that lemon I got.
