“...Ok, so I lost track of time. I just found the notebook and thought It might be a good idea to write on the last pages, a brief journal of the past weeks. And since it’s almost 1989, I will start a brand new notebook. Everything is OK. Hopes of going back to America are still high, except for my mom...she’s afraid and sorry because of the house. Regarding Mike and America, I still miss Mike, but I don’t think about him as much as before. And regarding America, well, I miss it more and more. I do hope we go back. I see no future here for me”
I have to admit, I had a natural born tendency to dramatize things. What could I possible have meant by “no future here for me”? I hadn’t been there long enough to know, I hadn’t lived any negative experience (so far). What did I know? The only reason I can remember that might have contributed to this negative perspective is the fact that socially, I was finding it very hard to fit in. In the first days of school, when I was a novelty, it was nice because everyone flattered me and was curious to know stuff about America. At the time, very little information (except for the movies) came in from the outside. And since America was like a big taboo, everyone was excited to know what strange creature it had created. To my surprise (at the time), the first days’ excitement faded quickly. Then, I realized how naive I was, to think that it would be this easy to make a bunch of friends. I was left with a group of three or four girlfriends, and they remained my buddies, at least until high school was over. Everyone was so different than the kids I knew in America, that I can’t even begin to describe the differences. But what really mattered was the fact that I wasn’t fitting in, and didn’t even make an effort in that sense. Since my thoughts were still in the States, and I hoped we would return, I didn’t give a damn if people liked me or not. I’m almost sure that, in their eyes, I was somewhat of a freak. Nowadays freaks go by almost unnoticed, even in Portugal, which is a country that only in the last decade caught up with universal patterns of fashion, society, communication, etc..
I have to admit, I had a natural born tendency to dramatize things. What could I possible have meant by “no future here for me”? I hadn’t been there long enough to know, I hadn’t lived any negative experience (so far). What did I know? The only reason I can remember that might have contributed to this negative perspective is the fact that socially, I was finding it very hard to fit in. In the first days of school, when I was a novelty, it was nice because everyone flattered me and was curious to know stuff about America. At the time, very little information (except for the movies) came in from the outside. And since America was like a big taboo, everyone was excited to know what strange creature it had created. To my surprise (at the time), the first days’ excitement faded quickly. Then, I realized how naive I was, to think that it would be this easy to make a bunch of friends. I was left with a group of three or four girlfriends, and they remained my buddies, at least until high school was over. Everyone was so different than the kids I knew in America, that I can’t even begin to describe the differences. But what really mattered was the fact that I wasn’t fitting in, and didn’t even make an effort in that sense. Since my thoughts were still in the States, and I hoped we would return, I didn’t give a damn if people liked me or not. I’m almost sure that, in their eyes, I was somewhat of a freak. Nowadays freaks go by almost unnoticed, even in Portugal, which is a country that only in the last decade caught up with universal patterns of fashion, society, communication, etc..