When to end an adventure

So I’ve been living in Prague since May. It’s kind of a long and complicated story about how I ended up here, but to sum it up: I wanted to travel, teach English, and avoid starting a real life and career in the United States.

They say the grass is always greener on the other side, and I must say that’s true for me. You always want what you don’t have. I grew up in the US and it got boring for me, so I wanted to try something new. So here I am.

But I’ve been here since May and it’s not really all I’d hoped it would be. And besides, I’m starting to miss my family and friends. So here comes the question: how do I know it’s time to move on?

I knew this was going to be a temporary adventure, and I never really set a definite time for it to finish. I said something along the lines of, “I’ll come home when either the money runs out or I don’t feel like living there anymore.” Which is actually a terrible plan when I think about it, but hindsight is always 20/20.

The problem is that it’s hard to define either of those terms. So here I am, and I have to decide what’s next. Should I stay a bit longer, hoping that things will get better but knowing that in so doing I’ll continue to miss out on important life events from my friends and family? Or should I go home sooner than I’d planned, assuming that sticking it out will only lead to further loss of money by me and/or my supportive boyfriend, as well as continued frustration?

Living in a foreign country is often as frustrating as it is fascinating, especially when you don’t know the local language very well. And while I do know much more of the language than I did in the beginning, I still am mostly clueless when I hear important announcements on the metro or try to get useful information from a shop assistant or the wait staff or a passerby. And while I am grateful that many people here speak English, it makes me feel quite incompetent when people ask simple questions of me in Czech and I have to put on my stupid clueless face and say, “Anglictina prosim?”

But aside from that, it’s hard to assimilate when you know you’re not staying very long. My lazy self is always telling me: “why bother trying to make friends here when you’ll be leaving before you really get to know them?” And I try to outsmart myself and make friends anyway, but it’s not easy.

All that to say, I’m stuck trying to make up my mind. I’ve already promised to go to my friend’s wedding in March, so that leaves me with essentially 3 options:

1. Leave in March for the wedding and stay in the US for good.
2. Go to the wedding in March and come back for a couple months, then go home for good in May for my other friend’s wedding.
3. Go to the wedding in March but skip the wedding in May and stay until June or July when my visa runs out.

As I briefly mentioned, I am living here with my wonderfully supportive boyfriend, and we’ve been talking through the decision for what seems like an eternity. But we can’t come to a conclusion on our own (mostly because I can’t come to a decision). It was always my idea to come here, and he came along for the ride. So I need to make up my mind so that we can talk it through (some more) and finally make a decision.

So, blogosphere, I know I’ve just started this blog and I don’t have many followers yet, but I’d like to ask your advice. What should I do? How should I decide? Do you have any relevant experience or ideas? Obviously there are a lot more specific details that I haven’t provided, but I’d like an outsider’s opinion to help me decide what to do. Or at least to get my opinion sorted out more clearly.

Thanks for reading! At the very least, writing it all out helps me sort through my thoughts. But of course I’d appreciate feedback as well