I’ve reached a critical point in this whole nonsense about going back to Lipnica. I told Jasiu that I’d write back to him with dodatkowy informacje przed konicu styczyn. All I meant was that I’d share with him my thoughts — how I’d want things to be, basically. (Teaching class IV, a guarantee of a certain number of hours, as well as explaining that I wouldn’t have to have Fridays off and so on.) It’s now well past konicu styczyn and I still haven’t even written him a note to say, “Sorry, I still haven’t decided.”

The troubling thing is that I really haven’t decided and I’m starting to wonder how the hell I could decide. […]

One question nags, though — do I really want to go back? At times, when I think about it and imagine myself back in Lipnica, I say to myself, “God, that would be awful.” I think of the problems I had there, especially with communication, and I want never to go back. But I know that in the end, most of those problems are surmountable. I simply have to work my tail off and actually learn Polish. I think the motivation might be greater this time around because I would know I was going back there to see if that’s where I wanted to live. The first time around I knew I wouldn’t be living there permanently and so I just learned enough Polish to get by. This time, though, it might be different.

The question is whether I would be happier there than I would be anywhere else. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to figure that out is to go back for an extended stay. I just am nervous (poor choice of words) about what would happen if I got there and realized that I wouldn’t be happier there than anywhere else.