This post is going to be personal and I ask for those friends of mine who read it to offer what advice you can.
Things here in Germany are good. I have a job, a (small) nice apartment, a girlfriend and have settled into a very comfortable life where I can work 6 hours a day and live. I'll never be rich, but I can live here.
About 4 months ago, the girlfriend and I had a fight. In this fight, she triggered a reaction in me that made me look into coming back home and to study photography - something that I have always wanted to do. When I was home, I applied at RIT for the visual media program "just to see".
I was accepted.
So now I am standing at a crossroads. I have told the girlfriend about what I intend to do. The reasons I gave were mainly my family, but also my culture, friends, language as well as more opportunity.
She argued that I could be a photographer anywhere and that I was just running away.
Perhaps she is true but I can explain.
She and her mom bought a villa in her home city. It's a "fixer upper" and they have been working on it for almost 3 years. The thing that kinda irks me is that remaining in this situation would have me ending up living with the mother-in-law. Never any privacy, never really feeling like it was "my castle". (bear in mind that they have their own floors, separate but never alone)
Well, the house is almost finished. Anytime I go visit her, it's not so much that we see each other but more she puts me to work - or wants to. I resist sometimes.
What I see for the next 10 years or so there is gardening (hate it!), housework like stripping paint or shoveling coal and never ever feeling that I have my own comfortable place. She has tried to include me in the decision making processes but all in all I cannot change the living situation.
So, if I stayed with her, I'd have to move to another country (again), learn another language (again), not be understood or not understand anything for 4 months (again) and I am tired of it.
I am tired of fighting simply to do daily things that are normal to everyone else on their culture.
I care about the girlfriend but I am looking at the rest of my life...am I wrong for being a little selfish? Maybe even a lot selfish?
She told me that she'd live in the US with me for a couple years while I study but then intends to move back to her city. Reasons?? Family, opportunity, friends.
Right: she won't do what she expects me to do.
So I am bordering depression mulling this whole thing over.
Aside from that, I hate my job. HATE. Over the last 3 months, I have learned that my company does not care about the actual quality of the work but only that the paperwork is filled out correctly.
And I don't want to do what I am doing forever.
So, I feel that I am languishing in my situation. I feel that I can have a more fulfilling life if I move back home.
I am choosing between relative comfort here, to being closer to my family and having more opportunity.
And that is probably why I am hiding in my stupid game so much.
