Glass Case of Emotion

Right now I’m feeling completely and utterly lost. I’m like a glass case of emotion. My emotions are so conflicted and all over the place. I don’t know if it’s just a funk I’m going through, fingers crossed it is and I snap out of it soon. Thing is, I don’t think people realise how much I feel stuck right now. I think people think I’m stronger than I really am… a part of me wishes I was that strong and I’m a little afraid to show that I’m not.

So, warning: because I am a glass case of emotion, this may become a reasonably long ramble. However as many of my friends have discovered I generally can't even write short emails!

I just arrived home a few weeks ago from a 6month student exchange in Paris, to call it an unbelievable experience is putting it mildly. Paris was more and nothing like I expected. The university was intense. But this is not so much about that experience but returning home, to my little world.

(However if you get the opportunity to go on an exchange

, it is an absolute MUST. It was an experience of a lifetime, and despite some difficulties I had over there, I wouldn’t swap the experience for anything, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat).

However coming home, I self-diagnosed myself with reverse culture shock. Ok 6months may not be that long to some people, but coming from little old NZ, still living at home, having never travlled by myself before it was a pretty adventurous, never racking, brave adventure.

Yet I came home to find thing not quite how I had remembered. Being away I did have moments of homesickness and on the plane home I was super excited to come home! I knew things would be different but somehow I was unable to mentally prepare myself for it.

Don’t get me wrong, it was exciting to come home! But then the change around me seemed to hit me in the face as a big welcome home. I suppose, I too have changed. Many of my friends have now finished university, many are now out in the big wide world, with their first jobs or internships, the kids that were year 9 when I was year 13 are now at university… I feel old to be there. And I still have a semester left and possibly an honours year… if I feel up to it.

My dear friend, we’ll call him Jar of Vegemite (haha in case he ever reads this, unlikely, but personal joke) moved away, about an hour and a half away… within driving distance but no longer 5min down the road distance. Ok he moved about a month before I went away, but I always knew I too was leaving, so it was ok =p and it never really hit me.

Many of my best friends are coupled up… some were before, or just before I left.. Again I’m just re-realising what this means.One of my best friends Pretty lovely has had A LOT going on, her mother is desperately sick, which I would wish on no-one, her brother and sister are both getting married, and her ex re-entered her life, causing chaos around her and her new relationship. She is one amazing lady, I LOVE her to bits. She is one of the strongest people I know, and sometimes I don’t think she realises how amazing she is and how she inspires me all the time.

Another of my best friends.. Miss Lou had also been overseas. Her bf went on an exchange and she followed him for 2months, she is a wonderful person, though I must admit I don’t always understand her attachment issues. She simply cannot bear to be away from her boy for very long. She has a confidence that inspires me. She is an incredible people person and will strike up random conversations with people, just the other day when trying to convince herself to buy a bag, she talked another girl into purchasing it as well! Completely accidentally.

I felt like my world had changed around me and yet I was back and I was now standing still. I am desperately trying to put the pieces together. As Jar of Vegemite put it, what I missed no longer exists, I missed the way things were when I left. Unfortunately just like me, they had to change too… 6months is a reasonable amount of time.. I do suppose.

Now that I look at it… in a way it was kinda like they prepared themselves for me leaving there lives for a little while and for that I am happy (or is that too much of a self-interested thought?)

To top it off, I desperately miss Paris, everything remotely French and all my amazing international friends so so much! It's like being trapped in the middle of two worlds.

Ironically… returning to work, I found that very little had changed! It was like I never left. This then made my 6month adventure feel like a dream. … So I was conflicted. Do I like change or do I not like change? I used to always think I liked change… but whenever change occurs that is out of my control, I don’t seem to deal so well.

Therefore I decided to embrace the changes or should I say, attempt to embrace the change. I’m still struggling as I try to find my new place in my little world...