I’ve been away for quite some time and I feel I owe you an apology. My life got to a point where writing didn’t quite fit. Well the publishing part of the writing because I have many drafts on paper. Before I tell you where I am now, it is only fair to tell you what all has happened that led me to where I am now. I left with me needing a new place to stay. Which no longer is the case. I have found a place. I also am one degree richer and a new adventure wiser. At the beginning I said that I have been away for quite some time that unfortunately does not include a trip, which I am honestly craving. However that’s for later, now let’s dive into this change in my ways.
I had planned to spend the month of July and the month of July only to look for a new apartment. I figured a month would be plenty of time to find an apartment. Upon which in August I could go travel as I usually do. You can already sense this one coming, I couldn’t have been more wrong. In the end it took me nearly two months to find a place that I genuinely liked. It was exactly there where the problem was. It wasn’t that there wasn’t anything available. It was that every available apartment was not to my liking for various reasons. Reasons such as strange constructions, filth or location. Speaking of strange constructions let me humor you and share some things that I have come across. I promise they will make you scratch the back of your head out of disbelieve.
There apparently are people who think it is a good idea to put the shower cabin next to the kitchen. Now I know you’re thinking this is perfectly possible with a wall, a door or some type of other separating construction. That however is not what I meant. I meant you have the sink, counter and then the shower cabin. No separating construction. Never thought I had to think about what it is I cooked so it wouldn’t be too smelly. I generally consider a nice food smell in the kitchen a good thing. However after having a shower and still smelling like food is just not something I desire. Do you still think I was being too picky? I’m going to assume you don’t but just to be sure I’m going to tell you one more anecdote. I visited an apartment which lacked a very important but taken for granted door. The bedroom had a door, the kitchen had a door and of course there was a front door. The latter also doubled as a bathroom door. That’s correct the bathroom is in the hallway, without a door. So you enter and immediately to your left you see the toilet and when you turn a little further left you see the shower. Exactly, I had to keep looking until I found something good.
Eventually after two months I found something good. I now have a new apartment without strange constructions, all necessary doors are in place and is not dirty. Victory at last. I thought I’d be sad to leave my old apartment but my terrible landlords made me feel great. So thank you I guess. Now obviously my new apartment didn’t come without flaws. It had one major but fixable flaw. One of the walls was painted bright red. Now I know what you’re thinking, you have red on the webpage plus it is part of your logo. Correct, I have nothing against the color red except when it covers a very long wall and makes me feel depressed. It got all dark and gloomy. I still don’t understand how the previous girl lived with it like that. To each their own I guess. Anyways after two days of painting and a professional clean by supermom and superdad I could finally move in.
It took me a week to properly settle in since new environments give me insomnia. I do wonder because that never happens when I’m on a trip. Something to wonder about later. I have so much to share. In the midst of stressing out about a new apartment I also had one last exam to take to finish my bachelors in psychology. I’m pleased to inform you that I passed and am now the proud owner of a bachelor degree. Well I have to still get the official paper but I have another one that says I passed so it counts! Bachelor of Science in Psychology is what I can now call myself. Not that I do, but I had to look it up for official reasons. After a bachelor comes a master. I too am following that rule and have started my masters programme. To be honest, it is making me miserable. I am and have been for quite some time a full time student, as they call it. However I have not been a fulltime student for a very long time. I say this because the past year, as you already know, I have discovered that there is much more to me than just trying to get a college degree. Note that I’m just in week one and I’m already feeling this way. What does that predict for the rest of the academic year? Don’t get me wrong I feel fortunate and blessed to be able to go to college and be in a position to earn a degree. That matter is at all not the issue here. I fully realized in what a privileged position I am, which I am by no means taking for granted. However..
There is this quote that has been stuck in my mind since day one of uni.
‘’A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.’’
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
My mind has been stretched to points that I never even knew existed. I am no longer the same person. The person typing this today from her couch in her new living room is not the girl that started this journey. I changed. I have different views, I am standing in life differently now. I have changed my ways. I have completely and utterly cut myself loose from being ‘’just a student’’. I tried discussing this in cautious matter with someone close to me and what they said made me cry and realize something very important. It didn’t make me cry because they were being mean, rude or anything in that category but because what they said was like a bullet to my heart. My body immediately rebelled. I felt the urge to cry and my body broke out in hives. They said the following:
‘’Just sacrifice these two years and afterwards you can travel as much as you like. Or travel during the vacations, that is a good option too.’’
As I said in the opening paragraph I’m bouncing against walls because that’s how much I want to go explore somewhere new. However studying full time is making that a little harder to do. The fact that they said to just sacrifice two years of my life as if it was nothing aggravates me in more ways than you could ever imagine. They added that it would fly by. I have to admit, time goes by very fast. However to me that is all the more reason to take full advantage of the time I have now. Of every second of the day and not postpone what my heart beats for to a tomorrow that is not promised. It is here that I realized how blessed I am. I have realized that time is the most precious thing we own. I refuse to wake up one day and wonder where all the time went. As much as I love and respect the person I consulted I just cannot agree or follow their advice. I have to find another solution.
I know what life can be like when you grasp every day to the fullest. When you fill it with things that make you happy. You yourself become happy. I just cannot let that go without a fight. Life is better when I’m doing me. Well scratch that, life is great. I owe it to myself to continue on the path that I started paving for myself even if laying the concrete is becoming harder. I got side tracked for a minute, but I realize now that I needed to fall off in order to realize how blessed and lucky I am to be in the mindset that I am in. Yes, there are many insecurities and things that are not going the way I’d like to see them but as long as I keep working on realizing my dreams they have no other choice but to come true.
The start of a whole new adventure. Are you ready?
Love,
DCPR.
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