Hey hi hello, I should definitely be studying right now, since I've done absolutely nothing since my last deadline which was like a week and a half ago, but oh well, it's been too long since I last wrote a post and I fancy a vent, so here we are.So I'm currently back "home" for Christmas, but I'm struggling with it. Last time I was here I was in a completely different headspace, and being back here feels a bit like a step back, and I feel like I was in a much better place mentally when I left Bristol than where I am now. I miss Bristol a lot, and I miss the support network I've managed to build myself there. My family try to be supportive, but it's different somehow. I want to find happiness here the way I've managed to find it in Bristol after so long, but I don't know how to do that without change, and maybe that's the biggest problem here - nothing ever really changes.
I've been thinking a lot lately about uni as a stage of life. It's a strange one, because it's somewhere between childhood and adulthood; somewhere between dependence and independence. I live in a completely different city to the one I grew up in, but I never really fully moved out. Over the past few months, I quickly began to start calling Bristol home, but now I'm back here I'm conflicted. Where the f is home supposed to be? I suppose I'm lucky enough to have two, but at the moment I actually feel more happy and "at home" in Bristol than I do here. But one thing I learned last year is that people are everything, and the people that make Bristol what it is for me are also back at "home" for Christmas. So what now? I just feel a bit lost - I'm not unhappy here, but I'm not nearly as happy as I was when I was in Bristol just two weeks ago.
The reality is that I don't really want to live here anymore. I'm not at all saying that I want to cut myself off from my family, because I really don't - I love them to bits and I wouldn't want to spend actual Christmas with anyone else. But I've managed to move forward so much over the past few months, and fully moving back here, even just for a few weeks, just feels like a step back. But is moving out properly even an option in my current stage of life? I'm not sure it really is, especially without upsetting my parents, and I definitely don't want to do that. And is that even really what I want? Or is the grass always greener on the other side...?
So what do I do? How do I get my head back in the right place so going back "home" doesn't feel like going backwards? One day maybe I'll work it out, but for now I'm just going to open one of the 29 academic texts I'm supposed to have read already and just make a goddamn start on my work, because exams are in less than two weeks and if I took them now I'd almost definitely fail lol.
P.s. I know it's sort of implied by this post, but I never actually updated you on how my second year is going. The bottom line is that I'm loving it. I'm really freaking busy (isn't everyone?) hence no updates, but my life is finally moving in the direction I want it to be, and fundamentally I'm the happiest I've been in a really long time. So yeah! Happy freaking (almost-)2020! Here's to leaving all the crap of the past few years behind us. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a fresh start.
Naomi :)
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