It's What You Make It

"In our heads, living out dreams is easy, but it actually takes a hell of a lot of work to live them and not just achieve them." 

The lovely Sarah (follow her insights here) told me this earlier today when I was having yet another one of my moments. I felt stressed out by school, lonely because I hadn't really found good friends (and those people I had met in my cohort were extremely cliquey), silly because I was still apprehensive about public transport, and pissed at myself because I felt I had accomplished nothing. To which I felt the look I was getting going right through the computer screen. "What do you mean NOTHING?! You've sold everything you own, said goodbye to everyone, uprooted yourself and moved 4,000 miles away to a new country. People talk about doing that all the time but do you know how FEW people actually DO what you've done?!"

Fair point. And that's the trick that no one tells you. Logistically, achieving your dreams is fairly easy if you have the resources. But once you're there you actually have to LIVE those dreams and that's the hard part. There are new things, places, people, situations and a lot of those will scare the shit out of you. You'll second guess yourself more times than you know. There will be awful times and amazing times. Life doesn't stop just because you've achieved what you've always wanted.  So it's really up to you to morph it into what you want it to be. I'm still working on this with some difficulty. I also have to learn to give myself a break! I can be really hard on myself and that gets me nowhere but stressed. I've been here for just under 3 weeks and I need to stop expecting everything to be perfect. So I'll make a cup of tea (until my coffee gets here from America, yay again for Sarah!) and learn to RELAX. (Maybe then people will stop thinking I'm always angry/sad/intimidated all the time)