Mirrors and Boats

Disclaimer/warning/beware: today's post features....a strange and profound little rant.

Tonight I cannot stop thinking; my mind is running faster than I can keep up.
Being here and living and breathing everything differently is such a strange experience. I feel disconnected to many things...permanently.
Before I came here, I had a strong gut feeling that something about me would change. Everybody said "no no, you'll be the same Morgan!" but for some reason, I couldn't believe them and I think I was right. Maybe I'm not a different person, but I'm getting to know myself much better. And I still surprise myself. Who would have thought I could survive rejection from a family? I have learned that there will be people people in life who will not like or accept my choices and differences, but that is their problem and I have to still be content with myself and move the heck on.
Moving on is never easy for me because I like to overanalyze and rethink and learn from situations so I don't make mistakes, but here my time is just so short that I have to be open-minded enough to see and do everything. That's all I really want here. To collect experiences to keep in my pocket forever.
And then these experiences are molding me like a clay teapot in a kiln. Everything hardens permanently until something drops and is broken.

I don't know many people here very well and they don't know me. Many of them don't give me a chance when they discover that I have no idea what "ratatitavitalamita" means and they give up. Others are excited to hear from the mini American ambassador. And others see me as a person and care about my success here. I really like them.
But I always have myself, and finally that is a great comfort. We all drive our only little boats in the sea of life; we can latch onto others with ropes but we technically enter and leave the seven seas in our own, customized, little speed boat. Here I have found that I am content with my boat and what I am reflecting in the mirror.
Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder who is there, who will be there, who has been there. I wish the girl in the mirror had laughed at herself when the entire class chortled at her accent instead of sinking down and blushing, I wish the girl in the mirror had stayed longer to chat with the people she is uncomfortable with, I wish the girl in the mirror had went up to the boy tonight, or the girl who was crying at recreo. But alas, what's done is done and I have to keep steering.

These are my thoughts right now. Do with them what you wish, because I have no idea what to do with them. I am rather happy here, and feeling rather down when I think of returning to my slightly-loserish, quiet life where I don't affect six different people every day or meet people from Italy and Spain and Ireland and Romania every two hours.
Only two more months to soak up all of this craziness and to root for whoever that girl in the mirror is, to tell her to walk away or to jump in and watch her do it.