Ebb and Flow

I feel like pinching myself when I say it, but I miss home a lot. It’s so hard to admit it to myself. How could I possibly want this wonderful trip to end? It seems ungrateful, and whiny. But I guess my brain is hardly ever in cahoots with my emotions, and whenever I start to get lonely and miss home, my thoughts tell me that I should not feel this way. I should go out there and love every second of my time here. I guess it’s similar to the way I felt upon arriving- unable to accept my trepidation at the idea of adjusting to so many new things. I’ve seen and done a lot of cool things- just this weekend, I got to row twice with my friend on the Sydney Harbour, a memory I will cherish forever, and taste the wonderfully fresh sushi from the Sydney Fish Market. How could I possibly be sad?

The answer is: I don’t know. My emotions are so in flux. It feels like a constant struggle to tackle and control them, when in reality, I shouldn’t be trying to do anything of the sort. All emotions are legitimate. It’s just so hard to accept what they are in the moment. I don’t know why that is—maybe I am just averse to the idea that outside forces can so easily affect my emotional state. It makes me feel silly and sensitive. But life would feel so much better if I could just let the emotion go its course and then move on from there. It’s something to work on, that’s for sure.

I guess that’s what I’ve gotten through the best going abroad—not trying to lie to myself. Acknowledging that I am actually tired, that I don’t need to stay up with my friend group to finish a movie I’ve already seen. I did decide to sleep past my alarm at 6am to workout before my internship, because it’s valid that I would not have enough energy to focus if I did so, and I can still workout after work. There should be no shame in those decisions I make. My priorities have changed, I don’t feel the need to prove myself to me or these people as much as I have in the past. It feels like I know myself much better by refusing to do so—more true to myself. Less guilt, less shame. Those never feel good, and I just tear myself down when I obsess over every little decision I make.

I’d like to clarify that I never fully come to these conclusions successfully. Sure, they sound pretty typed out and resolved at the end of an internal conflict, but in reality, my “solutions” are only a small step in the right direction. It takes me a lot of time to try to integrate these ideas into my daily life—if I ever do (I’m not entirely sure). I hope I don’t come off as conceited for having these “revelations” because that is not what I intend at all. I find myself sinking into any moral high ground I step onto, intentional or not, like quicksand. No, I am merely someone who types out her thoughts because it feels nice and pretty and clean to resolve some of my unresolved thoughts/emotions into a few conclusive sentences in the hopes that it helps me grow to be a bit more self-aware and reflective. Or maybe, makes me stop myself from being too self-aware and reflexive. Unclear.