Dear Daddy,

With it being my last day here in North Macedonia, I found it necessary to write my last post at my favorite place in Skopje, Squeeze Me. This place is a lil juice place that serves sandwiches, salads, etc. and I come here as often as possible. I normally get the chicken sandwich for lunch or if I'm here for breakfast or an afternoon snack, I get the granola and berries (which is basically a parfait). Sometimes I'll order coffee or a freshly squeezed juice. Today when I came in one of the young men that work here came and sat across from me and asked if I had seen the pictures from the other night when the girls and I went out. I was like... there's pictures of me on the social media lol.... anyway we looked through them, giggled and I ordered my chicken sandwich and started typing. Now, I said all of that because I wanted to. There is no specific reason that I told you about my favorite place. I just felt like it was a good place to reflect a tad.

Now I won't say a lot because I have mentioned before the ups and downs and what this experience has taught me. Mecca as a Fulbright Alumna is way different from Mecca Pre-Fulbright. We're going to get transparent here for a moment.

So Pre-Me coming out here a lot happened that I was not emotionally ready for. In June my Dad passed. That hurt like no hurt I had experienced before. I'm tearing up writing this because he's wasn't here to hear about the things that happened to me while I was here. I didn't mention that to people while I was here because 1, i didn't want a slew of questions and 2, I couldn't fix my vocal chords to say anything about it. I'd find myself crying out of nowhere because I'd suddenly think of the phone call I received telling me I needed to be a "big girl". So I guess every time someone would be like, "oh you'll be fine" or "you can handle it", I'd question myself if I could really be this "big girl" I was expected to be. I know he's looking down and sees the good that has come out of my time being here. Going back home will be difficult because as I make my trek to Nebraska, he won't be there and I haven't come to terms with that yet. This so-called strong young lady most of you know is gonna need time to process. You can't really do that when you move out of the country and start dealing with crap and you're focusing on survival.

Daddy,

I finished. I did it. I was... a big girl

So who is she now? She's Mecca. Honestly I couldn't tell you what really is different you'll have to find that out for yourself. But know these things, I've learned that I am no longer taking "stuff" from anybody. I got one life to live and if you feel the need to be rude or awful towards me there are no chances. The Lord gives chances and I am not Him. I'm Mecca.

My daddy would be proud and that's all that matters to me.