Have I found myself yet?

I will come home from London fatter. I have put on weight here because the food is all carbs and I haven't made any effort to diet or excercise or order the salad. I will come home from London with an extra 5kgs, and an extra notch on my belt.

I will come home London fatter- bigger, wiser, fuller.  Not only fatter, physically, and full of pastry and pie and wine and croissants, but fatter, emotionally. Fatter, intellectually. Fatter, in my heart and fatter in my mind. Full of learning and knowledge and streetsmarts and independence and love. I will come home knowing that I can travel alone. I will come home knowing that I can sleep alone, for days, weeks at a time. I can spend time with strangers, and I can stand up for myself when I feel uncomfortable.  I will come home with a new understanding of where I was before I left, how scared and trapped I was in a beleif that I could not be a whole person without other people.

When I left I talked about wanting to 'find myself'. In hindsight I don't think this is really what I was looking to do. I think my goal was actually just to prove that I could do it - or maybe to see what it was, that I could do. I also think 'finding myself' included a couple of 'mini-goals'.

The first goal of my leaving Sydney was this - get over Cale. As rudimentary as that may be, that's what I needed to do. Not just him - the person- but the hurt. The attachment to the relationship and the hurt from the break up. I needed to leave Sydney and be by myself, not find myself. I needed time to think for myself and challenge myself. I don't know what it will be like when I get home. But I do know that my feelings have changed significantly. The hurt is not so deep and the anger is not so acute. The break up is starting to feel far away now, and instead of devastated I feel a calm sadness, and only when I think about it, which is not so often.

I was surprised at how much I missed Grant when I left. This, was the second goal of my leaving; figure out how I feel about Grant. I needed to be sure that the relationship I was having with Grant was not an extension of the devastation I was feeling over Cale, or a comfort I was seeking because I did not know how to be alone. I needed to be sure that the feelings I thought I was having weren't just projections, or imaginations. I needed to figure out why, if I really was falling for Grant, I wouldn't commit to a relationship with him. Why I kept having fleeting attractions with other people, why I wouldn't let myself just fall. All of this is very obviously inextricably related to goal number one. I wasn't 'over' my relationship with Cale, I wasn't ready to embark on another one. I was still crying often for the hurt and abandonment, I was still scared to be alone. I still wanted to understand what went wrong with Cale and I - this took up space in my heart that needed to be free for Grant.  The last three months, As I have felt freer and freer of the hurt and dependence and anger for Cale, I have lay awake at night thinking about what this means for me and Grant. I have missed him and his sea-blue eyes more than I dreamed I would.

I honestly cannot say what will happen when I get back to Sydney, with Grant and I, and I won't tell you exactly how I feel about him (because I think I should tell him first). But it feels good. We always said that if it felt good, we would go for it.

There are other goals that I have achieved since I've been away, that I didn't even set. Since I am one of those people who adds things to a 'to do' list after I have done them, just so that I can cross the off and feel accomplished, I had better let you know what these are too.

I read now. For pleasure. Before I left Australia I had probably read about 3 books in the past 5 years for pleasure. I pick up a book, read some of it, put it down, forget about it, and pick up another one in a couple of months, only to repeat the cycle. It became very frustrating because I can only tell you what the first two chapters of any book on my shelf are about. I had sort of accepted that this is just a trait that will always be a part of me, I am just not a reading person. How ridiculous.
Somehow; since I left Sydney I have read six books. In three months. I even finished a book I wasn't enjoying, because I felt determined to finish it. This is something I have learned to do and I'm not even sure how.

I have slowed down. I am so much less anxious and so much less worried. This is a difficult thing to explain but I notice it often. For example if I miss a bus, instead of panicking, I just wait for the next one. If I run out of money, instead of bursting into tears, I just calmly decide what I can do to figure it out. If I have nothing to wear... ok, I still kind of have a tantrum if I have nothing to wear, but that's normal I think. I bite my nails, so. much. less.

I wonder if I have found myself, I think maybe a bit. At the same time I don't think yourself is really something you ever can really find. But I've figured some shit out, and I don't think I'll really know the full result til I get home.

xx

London Still

I took Ellie to Piccadilly Circus the other night. Dear sweet Ellie looked like a little squirrel in headlights, staring up at the buildings and lights like she had never seen a billboard before.

"London's... real... big" she said slowly.

I took her hand and pointed at landmarks, different musicals, theatres, and buildings, as she stared with wonder. People just can't help loving London.

We went to some clubs and we danced with some German girls. We drank and danced and go back to our hostel in time for the free breakfast buffet at 7.30am.

Yesterday we watched a movie called 'The Happening'. If you haven't seen it, and are a fan of "so-bad-it's -good" style action thrillers, I highly recommend this one. All you need to know is that it is about killer trees.  We then watched 'Poseidon' - This didn't quite cross from the bad to the good category, but it was still worth laughing at.

Today I am going to take Ellie to not-so-big-ben, and Westminster Abbey. I will upload some photos tomorrow. It's nice to have a friend here, and it's made me realise that I have begun to feel like London is familiar to me.

I really do love it here, and I love showing it off :)

Not much to blog about at the moment, except maybe that its also worth a mention that today is one year exactly since Cale walked out. Which is momentous, because it marks a big change. I feel happy about the changes and choices I have made in the last 12 months (well, the majority of them). I feel like I have grown and moved on and adapted and matured. It's been a really huge year, a really painful and testing year, and I am patting myself on the back. LIKE A BOSS.

xx

To-ing and Fro-ing

So far I have emailed my travel agent five times.

1- Can you please book my ticket for the 12th April.
2- Wait, can you make that the 15th?
3- Wait, I'm having second thoughts, can you not book my ticket at all?
4- Yes ok, I've decided for real, book it for the 15th.
5- No, wait, I'm not sure again. Can you hold off again?

This is what I am affectionately calling the the 'to-ing and fro-ing'. This here, is a confession, because So far I have only confessed this string of emails to one person. I feel so resolute, each time I decide I am coming home, and then something makes me change my mind.

The first time it was on Friday. I was out at a pub on my own, and I had had about 2 pints of beer. I sat at a dodgy bar talking to the bartender. I told her I was going home in a couple of weeks and I began to explain why. As I became more and more intoxicated, I became less sure. Suddenly I thought 'I am making a huge mistake. I called Ellie, very close to a panic attack.

The next day, after having told my travel agent to hold off on booking the flight, I felt ok again. I was back to wanting to go home, and felt sure. I pushed any silly ideas about regret and mistakes and wasting my life out of my head, and went back to my email, told my travel agent yes, ok, get me back on the plane.

The second time I told my travel agent to hold off, was about 30 minutes ago. Following an email I got from my job agency. They are interested in interviewing me for an event management position in their office. I got the email and went straight into panic mode again. Back on the phone to Ellie I again struggled with the idea that I am making a huge mistake. I could stay here.

So much of me wants to go home.
So much of me doesn't.
How does a person make that decision?

I know that everyone has an opinion. I know that only I can decide. I know that the practicalities of staying are becoming very obvious - if I do not get some paid work in the next couple of weeks I have no other option than to come home.  I know that if I come home I will always have that bit of me that wonders whether maybe I should have stayed.

I don't know what to do. So much of me wants to be here and so much of me wants to be home, feels like I have done so much and experienced so much. There are things and people at home that I don't want to be away from anymore, I don't want to wait for anymore.

This is becoming a very hard decision, one that I really thought I had already made. 

My not-aunt and the South Africans.

Let me start by saying that I am so far from ungrateful. I have been staying in the big beautiful house, in Forest Hill, a leafy suburb in South London (where Kate Bush and Spike Milligan once lived!) for weeks now.  My host, who is not my aunt, but a relative who is something close enough to an aunt that I can't be bothered figuring out what her actual title is, has been very hospitable and gracious. She has cooked for me many times and opened up her home to me, giving me a warm bed and a hot shower to stay in, indefinitely, when my only other option has been a dirty and crowded hostel. Her husband and daughter have been kind and helpful, and I really don't have anything to complain about.

Except for the racism.  I have gone beyond being annoyed by it. I don't bother taking offence, trying to argue with it or reason with it. Instead, I look on, incredulous, say nothing, and silently laugh. Sometimes I think that bigotry is so dumb, that it is not even worth my rebuttal. Sometimes I think its best to just leave Tony Abbott lovers alone. 

My favourite comment was last night, when my not-aunt told me that "all South Africans are racist". Apparently the irony of that comment was completely lost on her. I did my best not to laugh and excused myself for a cigarette. 

On Thursday I will be leaving this house, going to stay in a hostel with people of different cultures and backgrounds, sexualities, genders, preferences, political views and social statuses... I feel happy and lucky that I was raised and educated in a way that makes this an exciting venture for me, and not a scary one. I feel grateful that I don't have sweeping assumptions about "all South Africans" or "all coloured people" or "all gays" or whatever else conservative, scared, closed minded people have. A life lived with so much fear and judgement must be such a boring life. You must meet so few interesting and varied people, you must encounter so few lives and experiences that differ from your own. 

So, hooray for difference! Hooray for diversity! Hooray for the South Africans and the blacks and the whites and Asians and the Spanish and the gays and the genderfuckers and for everyone on the planet! Hooray for my not-aunt and her conservative allies, even though their politics are totally different to mine and they probably think I am weird. Hooray for them anyway, because nothing annoys the conservatives more than when the lefties say hooray!!