The Comeback

Writing a blog is a tricky business. It’s an informal, casual writing style that seems to invite two perceptions: that you want to be Carrie Bradshaw, or that you’re not much of a writer at all.

And if the latter is the case — I’ve been a pretty lousy writer. It’s been a year since my last blog post, “Back in Belgrade.” Obviously, I did not intend for a year to pass. Was it John Lennon who said, “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans?” How true. 

And yet it’s been heartwarming to continue to receive messages about the blog. This winter, an old friend reached out to tell me they’ve been anxiously awaiting a new post. And in April, a stranger messaged me that they’d recently discovered my blog. That they’re an American girl dating a Serbian boy!

What I do here is not novel: there are thousands of travel and romance blogs. But I want to thank you for your continued support. For giving a damn about my tiny corner of the Internet. For reading about my takes on Belgrade and love.

To answer your immediate questions and concerns: I didn’t stop writing, I just stopped writing the blog. About three weeks ago, I graduated with my Master’s in Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Hunter College! (For my non-American readers, I just finished my graduate studies.) I have produced a manuscript containing sixty pages of poems. I’m beyond grateful that I get to say this; to have had the privilege of being a part of such a competitive writing program; to have had such wise mentors and peers. 

To answer your follow-up questions about Aleksa, I have great news! Aleksa was approved for his Visa. He officially moved to the United States at the very end of March 2023; he’s here to stay! We’ve been living together in New York City for the last three months and I couldn’t be happier. We recently moved to a spacious one-bedroom and it feels like we have finally begun to live our life as a married couple. Which is to say … no more long distance! No more back-and-forth traveling. No more saving up for expensive flights. 

But to tell you the truth … I’ll miss it. Not the heartwrenching goodbyes at the airport, not our long stretches of time apart — but the excitement of travel. There’s possibly nothing better than waking up in the blue, early morning and checking in at the airport. The world seems so open and full of possibilities. And your heart is full and anxiously beating because you know you’re about to reunite with your soulmate.

Or maybe I’m just a lunatic.

Before dating Aleksa, I had never been on a plane. Ok, there was one trip to Ireland in 2018 (the year before I met Aleksa) but there was nothing else. I was nineteen years old when I took my first plane ride.

Where I am from, this seems to shock people. 

You didn’t even fly domestic? They ask. Especially not domestic, I answer. My Dad is an angry Brooklynite, which means we drove everywhere and flew nowhere. I’ve driven to Florida twenty-five times from Connecticut.

So you can imagine the convenience of falling in love with someone like Aleksa, who is not a road trip away.

But now, I’ve developed all kinds of rituals. Many are gross consumerist ones. I’ve collected so many “long plane ride” outfits, it’s hard to believe I took my first plane ride in jeans. (No one told me that’s a bad idea!)

I’ve been gifted five suitcases and three handbags over the years, purely for travel. My closet hoards a bizarre collection of goodies that one would only need on a plane: single-use skin care, reusable-folding-straws, neck pillows that shrink to a nanometer if necessary — so be it. 

I always get the same thing at the airport: a latte that I instantly regret and an overpriced issue of Vogue. At the gate, I always read a considerably bad “summer romance” novel. And on the plane, I always binge-watch rom-com after rom-com on my Netflix app. Bonus points if I watch “50 First Dates.”

A lot of things I do for comfort, because surprise, flying solo to a foreign country can be stressful. AirSerbia has been my airline of choice (who doesn’t love a Nikola Tesla-themed lunch?!) but there is always that strange moment on the plane when the people around me realize I’m not Serbian and I don’t know what they’re saying to me.

Most notable is the time I brought my wedding dress (venčanica) on the plane and people wanted to talk. But our limited understanding of each other’s languages resulted in a lot of smiling, nodding, and patting my hand. Or there was the time a rowdy American passenger caused a scene. The Serbians on board proceeded to speak in Serbian quite badly of this man. But unexpectedly, this American passenger whipped around and began to speak perfect Serbian back to them. Jaws dropped. I wish I had known what was said!

That brings me to another question I’ve been getting a lot recently: how is learning Serbian going? It’s not happening as much as I’d like it to be happening. I learned the Cyrillic alphabet within weeks of dating Aleksa. People find this to be a sweet gesture, but it’s really because I’m a huge nerd when it comes to linguistics and phonetics. 

A few weeks into dating Aleksa, I had a bizarre dream about an old woman who claimed to be my relative. She said I must learn Russian. I know how this sounds, but when I woke up, I opened Google to the Russian alphabet and learned it within maybe a half hour. (The alphabet — not the language!)

Is it an ancestral connection? Is it a weird stress dream? Maybe both. I really have no idea. But this is to say that I’ve got my Serbian Cyrillic/Russian Cyrillic down (I apologize if this is not the technical way of referring to the differences between the two.)

By now, I would say I’m intermediate in Serbian at best. With graduate studies behind me, my goal is to focus more on my Serbian.

It seems like things have really wrapped up, hasn’t it? No more long distance, no more booking flights back and forth. So what does this mean for the future of the blog?

As much as I’d like for all of the long distance to be behind us, it’s not. We spent four years doing this. It might seem romantic and glamorous at times, especially with Instagram photos and blog posts to boot — but long distance is traumatic. It’s awful. 

Those are deep wounds I might not ever be able to write myself out of.

As for trips to Serbia — we will be back! You can’t really take the boy out of Belgrade, after all. We’re just not sure when our next trip is. We’re in the middle of unpacking our new apartment and starting our life together in the States. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be there right now — this is the first June in years that I’m not in Belgrade. It feels strange!

This morning, I was scrolling through photos from exactly one year ago. It was a dry, hot morning; I straightened my hair for the first time since middle school. Aleksa took me to Dorćol for breakfast. The kitchen put an ice cream bar in my coffee — the Serbian way of drinking “iced coffee” — and afterward, we visited Princess Ljubice’s castle. It’s hard to believe it was a year ago because I can remember with vivid clarity how the rooms echoed with our footsteps. Or how there was a violinist practicing with an opera singer in the basement, which gave the entire castle a beautifully haunted feel. 

Now I’m sitting at a new dining table, drinking an iced coffee (the American way), and writing this blog. There are mountains of boxes around me, which is just another reminder of how much has changed this last year.

Before I sign off on this “comeback” blog, I want to acknowledge the tragedies that occurred in Serbia last month surrounding mass shootings. My heart is with you. I applaud the people for demanding gun control, and I applaud the president for swiftly stepping in to impose new laws and regulations. My voice, along with thousands of Americans, demands gun control for our country. We have not yet been heard. We continue to grieve. We support you and we see you. We hope your example inspires more countries to crack down on this issue.

As always —

That American Girl