Hace frio y estoy lejos de casa

In account of my talk of Argentinian traditions (food) I think I'll get a bit into that.
I moved here from Argentina when I was 12. I like it here, I do... but if I was to be totally honest I'd say I wish we had never left. The only thing that keeps me from thinking so is Butthole because I obviously wouldn't have met him if I hadn't moved.
The biggest problem is that I moved here at such a transitional time in my life that I never really got a chance to feel like I belonged. I was starting the troublesome teenage years as it was and the place we moved to well... I don't' know what it's like in the rest of the US but the kids in this town were really not open minded. The first year of school I got picked on A LOT. I spent most of the time crying in the councilor's office. I experienced everything from someone putting gum in my hair, to incriminating notes being passed around in my name (I almost got suspended for that), a girl pushing me and threatening to beat me up, and kids who claimed to be my friends turn on me and tell lies about me. It was rough. By the next year my exterior hardened and I became mean, cold, distant, and harsh with anyone that dared speak with me. I made friends but never close ones.
After that came my parents divorce. I was almost 14 (they told me a few weeks before my birthday, oh fun). As if I hadn't become tough enough this pushed me to become the ultimate bitch. There's no other way to put it. I was rude to everyone and made very few friends. Even the girl I called my best friend I wasn't open with. It was just bad. She moved the next year and I was pretty lost. I made new friends. Everyone who claimed to like my "toughness" eventually tired of my anti-social behavior and dropped me. Who could blame them? Then came ex-boyfriend.
At first everything was great. He actually helped me get rid of some of my mean streak but pointing out that I really wasn't benefiting from it like I thought. Eventually, though, all of HIS psychosis came out in the open and I wasn't so happy. He had so many issues that I could barely deal. He was so manipulative and I had become so co-dependent that I stayed with him for nearly 3 years. He was a jealous, judgemental, control freak and even though at first my social life expanded a bit eventually it stopped. I wasn't allowed to have a social life apart from him. My self-esteem was practically totalled.
Thus far of course none of these things include the added problems with my family. The fallout between my sister and brother, then between my parents and my brother, the divorce, my dad leaving, the wrecked relationship with my mom, the fallout with my sister, moving, my brother's arrest, moving again, etc. Some of these things made me meaner, the meanness led to other disasters such as the fall out with my sister.
Being with Butthole has helped me deal with a lot of my issues and I'm a lot better. I've learned to be a lot nicer. I really feel like I'm becoming a better person every day and I have Butthole to thank for that. Eventually my sister and I patched things up (because she's a bigger person than I am) and she's my best friend again. She helps me a lot too.
How does all of this relate to Argentina? I guess it doesn't. Not really. I'm sure obstacles would have been encountered there, too, because such is life. It makes me sad because all of these problems over the years have left me with scarce positive memories of the past 8 years. That's basically all of teenage-hood. I have few friends and given my present situation and the memories that people have of me I have few chances to make new friends. My life is at a stand-still.
I've gotten in touch with some of my childhood friends from Argentina and looking at pictures makes me nostalgic. Groups of girls I went to school with from the age of 5 to the age of 12 are still hanging out together. People here have friends they can say they've known since childhood. I can't. I can't relate to any stories from childhood and because of how closed off I was in high school I don't have any stories from then either. I've never managed to quite fit in here. I feel like if I went back I wouldn't fit in there either. Argentina still feels like home from here but I don't know that it would be if I went back.
I get really down about it sometimes. I really wish I had never left. I also wish I could go back and change mostly everything about the past 8 years if I couldn't change having moved here.