[This is a longer chapter]
It's day 6 and currently we are in the desert of California. This morning we were still in Las Vegas, Nevada but now we are sweating and in need of water in the middle of western California. It's hot but with a breeze of cooling wind messing up our sunkissed hair and blowing on our sunburned cheecks. At least mine are lol. I haven't seen Cali as in LA and San Diego yet, but I'm looking forward to it because Las Vegas was one to make my heart flutter and my smile grow bigger and bigger the more palms and colors I saw, I wondered how I'm going to react seeing San Diego.
New Jersey day 5
The plan was to wake up super early so we could grab an Uber swapping Manhattan for New jersey. And for once we achieved that without big stress. Maybe because it was way too early in the morning to be stressed out and it was unusually freezing.
We packed and rushed out to the Uber. The drive to New Jersey was mixed with emotions and opinions. New jersey, a special place in my heart, our old living place, my nostalgic place that I so desperately wanted to see again was not even 10 min away from us. My brother, on the other side hasn't been there for 9 years and didn't think it would be all that special to visit again due to it being more of a place for families to live rather than having the party in every corner you could look at, like in New York. My parents were keen to see it again. Nighty of course didn't know what was going on haha.
The Uber drove us to the car rental station where we got a big white Nissan SUV and headed to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast as it was still very early in the morning.
I ordered a Donut and Iced Coffee and shortly after it was my brother's turn to order.
"...oh no, could I erase my order...yes, please'', he chocked out in a very amusing unsteady tone with some thin layer of Swiss accent.
I'm not the type of sister to laugh out loud when her older brother says something funny or strange but this time I couldn't resist. I laughed out loud and wasn't even bothered by the death glare my brother gave me.
After we grabbed our order and headed to the car I laughed once again and he even laughed as well. We then continued to drive to the first destination of our day program, as we finished our Dunkin breakfast and me and my family compared our different English accents.
I had the strongest American accent, especially the R/L sound made it different than the not-even-strong but still present rather European accents of my family members.
The first destination we were heading to was our first living place back then. An apartment right next to the coast. We couldn't enter it but it was nice seeing it again and its untouched familiar look and surrounding:)
We then drove further to our favorite beach, the Sandy Hook Beach. We took there some pictures and I was surprised and pleased with how soft the sand was. It was very windy though, so we rushed back to the car and drove to the highschool we would have gone to if we hadn't moved away. It looked so pretty and chic with big soccer pitches and baseball&softball fields. It made me feel really empty and also at the same time really emotional seeing that and imaging the kids going to this school. Kids with different stories, houses where parties would take place in, and new friends.
We drove to the house we lived until we moved away, the thing I was looking forward to the most, something that should make me unable to sit steady in my seat.
But I realized how my lips started to tremble. My breaths got heavier, my heart felt crunched up and I felt the stitches. Too late to stop, I started to let tears roll down my cheeks. I clenched my jaw and turned my head away to the window, not trying to let my emotions show naked to my family. I didn't want to ruin the moment by being emotional so I dug my fingers in my knee's skin to mute the pain. But I couldn't stop letting the tears roll into the deep of my tear-jar with all the times i've gotten soft and emotional over things like this: nostalgia and longing.
What a pity, i thought to myself. I could've been here and be a completely different person in a school where the system encourages you to never let go of your dreams and do what you're good at. In Europe that simply isn't the case. You are told what you did wrong and that you should rather settle for something less, than settle for high 'unrealistic' dreams. I am really grateful for being able to grow up in Europe because of many reasons but still it got me sad seeing this 'lost opportunity' and the potential of experiencing way more than I do here, but again, I'm actually glad we moved away.
