Homesick

‘ello!

That’s me being British, by the way.  I’m only doing it because I got over 100 hits from the UK over the last 48 hours.  I think the fact that my blog is in English and talks a lot about soccer in Sweden is the reason so many Brits ended up at my blog on the day England played Sweden at the European Championships.  Besides that, sorry I’ve been away for a bit.  To be honest things have not been going very well here in Enkoping or in my personal life.  I won’t go into the personal things, but they play a major part of my life.  Just not really for the blog I guess.  The point I’m making though is that this week has really sucked and for the first time in my life I am truly homesick.

It’s a weird thing being homesick.  At least for me it is.  When I was 18 I left home to live in Tampa for college, then subsequently Baltimore and Harrisburg and now Sweden (and very briefly Finland).  I’ve spent plenty of time at home during those years.  In fact, I lived there for 4 months this past winter, which were awesome because I got to know little baby Amani.  Still, I’ve spent a lot of time far away from home and not once have I ever felt the way I felt a couple days ago.  I won’t talk about the personal life stuff, but I will say that I got hit with a couple of doozies within 72 hours of each other.  Those were coupled with the facts that I’ve been relegated to the bench for what are probably my last five games with ESK and the uncertainty of becoming a free agent in six weeks.  I emailed my agent contacts in Sweden and Finland, but neither has responded as yet.  That’s not good.  Typically when an agent doesn’t respond it’s because they have nothing for you.  An agent who has options for you is happy to talk and work out a contract.  Maybe I just need to be patient.  I would be happy to stay at ESK for the rest of the season, but not if I’m going to be buried on the bench.  I can sit on the bench in America.  Or in a city that has more to do off the field than Enkoping.  Hell, from what I saw when I was there, I could probably walk into a 2^nd division Finnish team no problem.  But that stuff isn’t for me to find, it’s for the agents.  There’s money in it for them so I know that they’ll look.  I'm not saying I necessarily want to leave ESK; in fact to get to Allsvenskan I'll probably need to play the whole season at ESK anyway.  I can't imagine a team taking me from the bench of the third tier to Allsvenskan in the August transfer window.

This is getting kind of disjointed but oh well, back to being homesick.  I’ve missed home before, but I’ve never considered myself to be homesick.  It just kind of seems like everything in my life is going to hell all of a sudden.  My dream of playing professional soccer has taken me to the last place team in the third division of Sweden, where I've done nothing to help the situation and sit on the bench.  My contract will be up in essentially one month and from there I have no options at the moment.  The only person in the entire country who I knew before I got here is my ex-girlfriend.  Think about that, you’re in a faraway place and you’re miserable and the only person you can possibly talk to is your ex-girlfriend?  You’d be homesick too.  She and I get along well, but you know what I'm saying.

That is literally all I have right now.  I wish I lived somewhere exciting, but I don’t.  We have 2 out of every 5 days off so 40% of the days I do absolutely nothing.  The only thing keeping me sane right now is entertainment in the form of Netflix and the Euro Championships.  I guess I could go to Stockholm again.  If nothing else I could just walk around the city.  I really like visiting big cities, even though I wouldn’t want to live in one.  I bought a new Playstation 2 game as well, so that should take up a big chunk of time.

I’m feeling better now, so you know.  I’ve had a rough week, but that’s par for the course when you move to a very new place.  There’s gonna be bumps in the road and it’s all about how you handle them.  It could always be worse.  I mean (knock on wood) I have my health, and my moviestar good looks!  I still believe that I will make it in a good league here in Europe.  Maybe it’ll be Sweden, or maybe it will be Finland, Belgium, Denmark or some other place. Or the 2nd divisions of one of the bigger leagues.  I believe in my ability, and just as importantly I believe in the ability of the people who find clubs for me.  Hopefully I can prove my worth here at ESK and make a move from that, but if not there’s other ways to get where I want to be.  Keep supporting me.  I know I’ll make it!