I don't wanna miss a thing*

    So the majority of you reading this probably have no idea what the background picture of this blog is... Well, I do. It's the parliament building in my favorite city in the world; Budapest, Hungary. You might think this is a random way to start a post, but every story has a beginning and that is where mine starts. Now I wasn't born in Budapest, and I didn't grow up there, but that is where I was first fearless. 
    
    My family and I moved there when I was going into the sixth grade. I must say at first I wasn't totally thrilled with the idea of living in my least favorite city I had ever visited for six months (that was my first experience with Budapest - that I didn't like it... but that thought did not last too long). Anyway I knew it was going to be hard but I also knew we were going to a really nice American school - with a lot of cool things that my current school did not have. So we moved there, with lots of tears saying goodbye to my best friend and her family and a lot of reluctancy to get on the plane (but let's face it I couldn't stay home alone while my family went overseas). When we landed in the Ferihegy airport I told myself to just deal with it and give my heart here. My parents needed me to lead my siblings and be the one who set the mood of the time spent here. So here I was in a foreign country where I did not speak the language... As a sixth grader. Quite the predicament. 


    I went to my orientation of my new school and the principal told the new students "Students come in here kicking and screaming, but they always leave kicking and screaming too." I was not a believer. I remember telling myself I would not enjoy it here and that I would be happy to leave in six months... 


     Fast forward a couple of months and you would find a secure, happy, loving six grader with friends from all over the world (literally) who was planning on persuading her parents to get them to let her stay longer than six months. That's when we had a family meeting and they told us the church needed us to stay a whole year. I was thrilled. We moved into a nicer apartment with more space and I was able to keep all of my friends and continue to fall in love with Budapest. 


     Budapest was the best place for me, not because of the city or the school though... I was fearless there. It wasn't that I wasn't afraid of being in a foreign country without my old friends but I put those fears aside and let myself go and enjoyed every moment of it. I fell in love with that city and the people in it. Hard. It wasn't like any other country I had experienced, mostly because I was at such an impressionable age. Most people who are in sixth and seventh grade start to figure out who they want to be in the world, or at least I did. I started realizing I wanted to live in Budapest when I was older. I never wanted to leave. I had friends and a church family there. Even though I missed my family and friends back home in the States, I loved it so much in Budapest that I wouldn't have been too upset if we stayed there through high school. 


      Of course, life doesn't always go as planned. Actually the majority of the time it does not go how you personally have planned. So on March 31, 2003 we had to get back onto a plane and fly back home. I remember when I first found out we'd be leaving my heart felt like it had an elephant sitting on it. It's a feeling I get now from time to time. I remember trying to figure out a way to lock myself in a closet of my friends' or just put up a great enough fight that we could stay... But I was fighting a loosing battle. If we stayed here after the 31st my parents wouldn't be getting paid and our car and house would be gone... In other words it was the only thing we could do. And once again, being the oldest I felt like it was my job to put on a brave face and try to deal with leaving.


     Saying goodbye to my friends there and the city was definitely one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life. I would cry until I ran out of tears, take a break for a few minutes and then continue to sob. It wasn't fun at all. "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith was one of my friends and my songs and whenever it played from the moment I found out the news until about three years ago I would cry. If you catch me on a bad day that song can still bring a tear or two to my eyes (eight years later!!)... That's the hopeless romantic slash overactive tear duct syndrome I mentioned before in me though. 


     Driving to the airport the night we left I listened to Janet Jackson's "Together Again" on my NOW CD on repeat (wow, that was an embarrassing sentence to put together). Luckily I switched to Usher during our layover... This was when I first learned the art of drowning out all of my feelings, thoughts, and any sounds into my headphones. I still do this when I can't deal with something or just want an escape. I turn my music up all the way and put in my headphones (one day I'll probably be deaf because of it). 


     To sum up this long and kind of jumpy blog post... I fell in love with Budapest and leaving it just about killed me. Well it didn't kill me, but it killed the fearless part of my heart and it killed the freedom I had in giving my heart. We moved close to my cousins when we moved back and I had to share my cousin's friends - which I am grateful to her for being willing to do - but I really didn't like it. I would come home and immediately email my friends in Budapest, or MSN messenger them, or even video/voice chat with them. Those were the moments of the day that kept me going. I would write about things I missed about Budapest. Eventually it was hard to describe what exactly I missed about the city. It was just a feeling I had. I knew if I went back things wouldn't be the same but I figured I might feel the same way... I might feel free again. I may not just shut off all my feelings and I may actually let someone in again. 


      I wish I could say I snapped out of it in a few weeks. But sadly I wasn't truly happy and content with myself again until my sophomore year of high school. And even then I still missed Budapest... But by then that wasn't the only thing I thought about. And my then although I still couldn't listen to "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing," at least I didn't burst into uncontrollable sobbing when I did hear the first few notes on the radio. I decided to start this "Road to Becoming Fearless" blog adventure with this story because I am planning on getting this feeling from Budapest back. I don't want to become fearless unless it comes from within and it is for myself. Not for anyone else. 


     So now when you see the picture of Budapest in the background, know that it is there as a small reminder to myself to be fearless. Everyday.