The crash

Right at two and half weeks after I arrived here, I crashed.

I had been on such a roller coaster of emotion given all the changes I was implementing at once, that it was looking back, of course, inevitable.

Leaving my job to be self-employed, moving out of my much-beloved home which would now be occupied by some stranger, no longer interacting with the same co-workers and friends and stores and streets regularly, starting a completely new kind of life and in a different country!

Not to mention the three years it took to get to this point and all the things that I had built up in my mind about what it would be like. A recipe to idealize.

I was finally abroad! Something I had long wanted even before that day in Spain.

And I was in London of all places! My favorite city yet. By far.

And I was free!

Free of what had become to me a dreary 8-5. Free of the stuff of taking care of a home. Free, even, of Colorado, which in many ways I love, but in others, I didn’t fit.

All this is to say, that while I was up and down a lot, I was mostly up. And what goes up…

I’m so disappointed, I said through tears to my therapist. And as so often happens, when we are in a space like I was, I heard her response, but I didn’t really hear her response. Not yet.

We talked about this possibility, she reminded me. It’s good it happened now rather than later.

Good?! How could things ever be good again when now I had nothing to work for?! And what I had worked for was no dream!! This wasn’t good. This was, in fact, terrible!! Awful!! After which I proceeded to spend some time feeling as bad as I needed to and getting it all out.

Then I realized she’d told me exactly what I needed to hear and what I already knew to be true.

It was the disillusionment that allowed things to right themselves into reality.

The reality is that London is neither dream nor otherwise. It is not the idealized version I’d built up in my head, nor the version I envisioned it to be during my crash.

It is just a place with people and problems as is anywhere else.

And the reality is, that I am still me and life is still life. And I still have my stuff, same as always, and life can be hard sometimes, and dull. And people don’t always do what you want them to.

But the reality is also, that I love this city, and I am thrilled to be here.

The neighborhoods, the transportation options, the green spaces, the old and new all mixed together, the energy, the diversity. Even often disagreeable things like the noise and the crowds and the sometimes inconveniences, I don’t mind so much.

It all somehow seems to suit me.

Am I happy all the time and constantly still excited? Of course not. But I wanted to know what it would be like to really live here. I wanted to know what would happen and how it would feel when the luster of novelty wore off.

And that’s exactly what I’m getting.

By the way, speaking of crowds, I’ll now share my adventure for this post: a trip to the famous Camden Market!

Very crowded food court, but best lamb kebob ever!

It seems like those signs go on and on.

I'm not sure...

...and, still not sure.