What I’m Doing Here

Wow, that was kind of mean, writing that last entry and then not writing again for so long. I don’t have much time (I never have much time any more!), but let me explain a little.

I’m now living in this country’s biggest city – about 20 times bigger than the town I was living in before. I’ve gone back to University where I’m studying for a Master of Arts. Just like I always said I would.

It was strange. I’d contemplated doing this in about September of last year, but then I wrote off the idea, deciding I was too happy where I was and that I didn’t want to be so far from my family and friends. Then a week before the first day of lectures… I was having a bad day. Nothing to do with my life where I was, but to do with the fact that my landlady had turned utterly septic and was persecuting Ree and I (a story for another time). I was lying on my bed in a bit of a state. And then, absolutely clear as day, I knew I had to come to this city and start my Masters. I don’t know where the thought came from, all I knew was that it had to be done.

From there it was surprisingly simple. When I’d contemplated this in the past, it seemed almost impossible, something which would require a massive effort and focus of energies. But it all just came together. I rang the post-grad advisor at the Uni and she provisionally accepted my into Masters over the phone. I rang the ferry company and booked my ticket. I bought a carry cage for my cat. I packed up the car and I left.

Which isn’t to say it was easy. My friends in that town had become like family to me, and leaving them was one of the most difficult things I’ve done. But it was accomplishable, not impossible like I thought it was going to be. And I accomplished it.

Even once I got here – I expected to be overwhelmed and terrified and lost and miserable for the first while. I factored that into my equations when I was figuring out how I was going to do this. But it was easy. No, that’s a lie, it was hard. I arrived in this city just as a cyclone started up. I’d never been in a cyclone before, and here I was a lost girl in a huge city where I knew no one. The backpackers I stayed at was flea-infested, the window wouldn’t shut properly and in perfect honesty I thought the roof was going to blow away. I was a little terrified, but not in the least overwhelmed. Amongst it all I never doubted that I’d done the right thing.

Much has occurred in between, and I have many MANY more stories to tell. But this is how I got here, and this is what I’m doing here.