031: So, something I don't like thinking about.

It really awful (depending on your answer) but... remember what you were doing this time last year?

I do. I was getting off a plane into the blizzardy London streets, with my recently broken suitcase in hand and had never been more excited in my life.

Its strange to think that so little time has passed, and yet so much has happened and so much has changed. Those six short months changed almost every aspect of my person, my attitude and my perception of the world. I was able to cram so much experience and life into my time over seas that I can't imagine doing half as much in this year. And yet, I know it is possible, because I have done it.

Some days, just going back over the memories can be painful, sometimes I laugh until I cry and then laugh again. Sometimes doing a simple day to day activity - like tipping a waiter will make me remember the time my house mates filled out a paper pick up for me to give to the waiter in London. Or when I went down the wrong corridor and tried to get into someone elses room. Little things that remind me that my time in England was the best in my life. And I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

  Kathleen x

009: Routine, or lack there of

A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think about my life in England. Be it a photograph or a status on Facebook or doing something again for the first time since I got back. I miss my friends, the environment the lifestyle and I miss the person that I was. There was so much excitement of living on campus, drinking every second night, barely studying and enjoying the freedom of living a life where consequences hardly matter. The things however, that I miss the most isn’t the parties and the cheap booze and the plentiful amount of attractive international men – it’s the routine that I created.

Each morning, I would be work by a knock on the door, throwing on whatever clothes that were lying on the floor and met with my three favourite housemates (or people. In the entire world) and trekked sleepily down to the dining hall for breakfast. We would part ways go to classes, if our time tables suited, we’d meet up for lunch or lounge around in each-others rooms before heading down with our whole dorm for dinner, gossip and a whole lot of laughs. Every day, normally integrated with some of the drama that seemed to follow us wherever we went. But that was the main part. It was normal. There was normality.

But since returning, that routine has vanished. I wake up in the morning with no plan, no structure and no motivation. I know I need to create something; something to give my days reason again. I want to make a new routine to get me back into a somewhat normal life again. I want, no, it’s more than a want, it’s a need – I need to regain some of the routine. 

001: The Return of the Caterpillar: Now with Wings

Exactly sixmonths ago, I was at the airport; tears streaming down puffy cheeks, unable to look back over my shoulder at my family waving me on from the barrier dividing those going and those staying behind. As the door shut behind me, my sister touched my mother's arm and said, "You know, she will never be the same again." 

And through her tears, my mother nodded. 

That day I set off to study and live in an English city I knew nothing about. I landed in a snow capped London, and watched my life drastically change. I was surrounded by amazing people, from all over the world, seeing a country I have idealised since I was a child reach all my expectations and lead a life that would have satisfied the writers of any second rate Soap Opera. 

But now, after all this time, I will return to that same airport, and cross back over the dividing barrier and return to normal life, and see if my sisters prediction came true: that I really have changed for good. 

The possibility of change has always frightened me. I was scared stiff when I moved out of home, and petrified when I left the home I had made for myself in England. All those time, I had been afraid of the unknown - stepping out into uncharted waters and praying for the best. But after a lot of thought, I have realised that the unknown scares me only half as much as stepping backwards into a bad situation. 

The fear that consumes me now if not a fear of change, but the lack thereof. Having been so content with my life abroad, I don't think returning to the way things were before could no longer satisfy me. I am scared of return to the mundane nature of my home life, knowing what life if like when I am actually living. To know I can enjoy myself and that if living on the edge is more than possible. I know that I am capable of many great thing. I just don't want to forget it. 

But I have decided that I will not be letting that happen. There are a thousand things I can do, from the convenience of my own home, that will hopefully allow me to continue enjoying life and avoid the mundane lifestyle that I was enduring before I left. I want to be able to look back on the years of my twenties as a time when I did extraordinary things, and didn't waste my time. Because now I am out of the cocoon, and who has ever heard of a butterfly turning back into a caterpillar? Yeah, I didn't think so. 

Kathleen
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