Adding Seniority to my belt

Hello everyone! You haven't seen much from me in a while, and I guess this is me trying to explain things a little bit, especially if you see my little heart replaced with a toilet medal symbol.

I've always thought that the person we're most accountable to is ourselves, and I knew when I was made a CV that this was going to be a steep road for me, and a huge commitment - I immigrated to the US on May 22, 2015, and was made CV not more than two days later... a crippling combination. but I figured that I would keep myself in check, stay busy, and step down if I saw I couldn't handle it, right?

Well, it's really easier said than done. Being a CV has probably been my favourite experience on DA, and even when I realized I was struggling to keep up with all I wanted to do for the community, I was holding onto that ideal of "things will be better soon". Sort of like when you outgrow your favourite pair of skinny jeans but you keep them in the drawer for a year and a half hoping your bones will shrink back to fit them, you know?

And so 2 months passed, really. You haven't seen me around since August, probably, and the truth is that life has been sorta hard for me. When I say hard, though, don't misunderstand me - Voldy and I both have a pretty secure full time job, we have the best dog in the world, we have enough money to have fun and live, we are healthy... you could really say we have nothing to complain about, and you'd be right. but it feels like I'm living an alien life sometimes, in a country that is not my own, away from my family and far from my friends. Having left my country when I was 26, it sort of feels like I'm missing the best years of my life with both family and friends; my adult years where I can have a grownup relationship with my parents while we're both still young, the years where my friends have their first kids and slowly become families, the weddings and the endeavours they take as young entrepreneurs dreaming to change the world.

And on top of that, adult life can eat you up. There is an endless supply of things to do when you get home, especially when you're an adult and the home is your home - no grownups to clean around, make your food, keep the cupboards stocked, the plants watered and the dog exercised. But while normally you have a lot of offsetting factors as well - the drink with your friends, shopping with your mother, a hike with your dad, a videogame battle with your brother, a sleepover at your best friend's house - as a person in a new country, without friends or a social circle of any kind, it's a harsh battle. I've always enjoyed solitude, but I always chose it, and it doesn't feel the best when it's pretty much the only choice.
_{(and yes, I have a husband - I wouldn't be here if I didn't. But your husband is not your life, or your servant. You can't dump all the chores on him and you can't expect him to be your whole life and circle of friends)}

Sometimes I thought to myself that maybe I should just quit my job, but truth be told, as an adult, when you need to cut things you need to cut the optional ones first and keep the ones that actually contribute to your condition of life.  

Long story short, while I can't complain about many things in our life, I also struggle to keep up sometimes. So when I have a minute to spare after having been away for eleven hours between commute and work time, I indulge other things; I watch anime, I write a story, I bake, I paint my nails, I play with my dog, I take a nap... I prioritize on things that make me happy and don't feel like "work". I've always believed being a CV was a commitment, and I don't really care if others disagree, to me it is: but truthfully, it's not a commitment I could deal with mentally, and it made me guilty to not be able to live up to it. And as you know, when you're guilty you're so busy feeling guilty that you waste hours thinking about it instead of acting to resolve it, which causes even more guilt, which piles up stress on your shoulders like you're Crash Bandicoot run over by a boulder.

I've always known mixing expat+CV wasn't going to be the easiest thing, but I wasn't going to pass up on the CV opportunity and I tried to do it justice for as long as I could. I really apologise for being so flaky in the last couple of months but I'm also almost proud I could cut the umbilical cord soon enough. :') I've seen people being inactive for half a year before stepping down and I'm glad I had the sense to do so sooner.

So yeah, the above is just me being 100% honest with you guys, because it's fair. I don't want a hug or a "it's going to be okay," really, I just figured that with all everyone has given me here, I owed you a small explanation of why I left the coolest Community Volunteering team in the whole world.

I'll be scraping my life together a little and probably be more present soon. Don't think you're done with me.

Hugs and kisses,

- Erika