The safety in a sense of belonging and the upturn of new beginnings. Hello, London!
Hi! So it is Saturday 9th of September and I am in London because I live here now! Its so weird, I just can’t get my head around it. It seems completely unreal just like everything else in my life (lol). I don’t process things very quickly, it takes me a while to really think that things are happening. So, week one of living in London has been a weird experience for me thus far. I arrived on Sunday after spending the most amazing 2 weeks in Holland with my boyfriend (he lives there!) and it was really incredible to learn what it was like to be with him properly (I will post another blog about my long distance relationship, which helps make sense of this a bit more) because I’ve never seen him for 2 weeks in a row before, which was also strange.
So I had all that lovely time with him and then suddenly I arrive on Sunday night alone in a new city with an internship starting on Monday. I didn’t have a moment where I could just chill or cry all day because in my planning, I didn’t allow time for those things. I guess I thought 2 days was enough to settle into a capital city that you’ve never lived in before. On that Sunday night I felt so alone.
I have to plan my weekends in advance too because I don’t know who the hell is where and who is going to be free. I feel like a freaking loner haha! I’ve come to a new city where I have to rebuild my empire (questionable choice of words there). I know some people here but they’re starting their own lives at University and I’m doing my own thing completely separate to that because I haven’t started University yet.
I did start my internship on Monday though, and I’ve met three people already. I like the other interns I’m working with, and its super because we got a chance to all work together and explore the Advertising Agency we are working at. Its really awesome and I feel like its somewhere I’d really like to work one day.
My course also starts next week, which is the Musical Theatre Foundation at Artsed. I get proper singing, dance and acting training, which will be so exciting for me. Since I’ll be doing that too, I’ll be really busy and I know I like being busy because it makes me feel like I’ve got something important to do. I’ve got all of this but I do cry a lot because I am still quite homesick. Sometimes I just think, ‘whats the point?’, ‘why am I doing this gap year?’, I see everyone at Uni starting their freshers week and meeting friends, having fun. Then I’m here like struggling to hang out with people because London can be such a lonely place at times. I’m doing an internship, which is awesome but I am working for a full day and it doesn’t leave too much room for social time. But then I think no, I wanted to take this year for me and I remember why.
All this new stuff, all this figuring out has made me see the safety in a sense of belonging. There is such a comfort to being surrounded by things that you know, recognise and understand. There is an immense upturn in a new beginning that would throw anyone off balance. People like what they understand and being in a new city is an example of something people don’t. Its new and unfamiliar territory which breaks away from a human comfort of ‘safety’ by placing this human in an element of danger. But in all of this, a human must look for its purpose, which for me was a moment to do something for myself. Taking a year where I did something that I chose to do. To be in a city all by myself and choosing to throw myself into the deep end. Its absolutely scary but feels like something I need to do. To be independent because there is so much of the world that I don’t know. So its important to keep remembering purpose and your ‘why’ in any uncertain environment because after a while it won’t be so uncertain anymore.
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