No Pictures, Just a State of Mind

---

When we did our arrival training all the way back in October, we were asked to find a symbol for how we thought about our EVS experience - our hopes, our fears, our expectations, whatever we wanted. For some reason the symbol I chose came to my mind without me even having to think about it, and I knew it was exactly right for how I felt.

I chose a spider, thinking about how a spider works so hard to build a perfect home and how, no matter how many times it is broken or destroyed, it rebuilds it, and it never occurs to it to just sit down and give up. I knew that I wanted to try and build a life here, a home, and I knew that it would be hard, and that at times I would want to give up. I came into this whole experience with big ambitions but open eyes.

Somehow, over time, I had forgotten this. Life's knocks come and come and there were days when I literally couldn't see how life here could possibly get better. I wasn't even doing anything wrong - I was being sociable, I was taking every opportunity, I was working my arse off in the pursuit of meeting people and finding satisfaction in my job and cleanliness in my home.

I'm guessing last week it seemed to plummet to new lows for a number of reasons. I should know by now the power that January and February have over my mental state, but it still takes me by surprise every year. Coming back to a cold and dirty and friendless flat immediately after a Christmas spent at the heart of a warm and loving and close to perfect family probably didn't help. Frustration at not having been able to see best friends while back in the UK. Feelings so confused about the men in my life that I don't know if I'm coming or going, where I stand or what I want in the first place. An uncertain future still looming ahead of me. Not being challenged enough at work, not being able to do things that I would love to do both there and in my social life because of the handicap of being brought up in a country that places no value on learning foreign languages whatsoever.

But as my friends keep telling me I am nothing if not a trooper, and somehow I managed to bounce back towards the end of the week. Suddenly there seems to be more people in my life, and people to call when I want to go out. I managed to spend this whole weekend in the company of people that I chose and wanted to be around, and I had fun and healed some wounds and saw my problems in perspective against other people's. There are new challenges in my life, new friends, new things to look forward to.

I might not have built a life for myself yet, and I'm sure what I've built so far will get knocked back in the fullness of time as life continues to test us, but I'm getting there. I will feel like I belong here.

---