This week has been an emotional roller coaster, as I'm sure many of you could have guessed.
I did about three quarters of my packing last night. I'm afraid I may have to buy another suitcase before I come home - I simply have too much stuff.
Today has been the day of things going wrong. I was declined for a debit card (so I can book things online) for the second time, I left my book on the bus, and I lost my new £30 sim card that I haven't even put into my phone yet. I don't understand why all these things are happening at once.
I have to mention the injustice of the bank. I am three days short of having met the amount of time necessary to be given a debit card. The reason I am three days short is because they would not give me an account in the first place. It took me a month before they would even open it for me. All I want is a stupid card so I can have easy access to MY OWN MONEY. MINE. Not theirs. Mine.
Stupid banks. I'd rather keep my money in a shoebox. The unfortunate thing is that even if I did, I would be in no better a position, and they really couldn't care less.
Anger is an odd thing. At one end it's horrible because it eats away at whomever is holding onto it. At the other it induces an odd sense of pleasure because hey, it's fun to be the victim. That being said, to live angry is no way to live.
This is what I have to be happy about: my housemates made me dinner tonight. Lasagne. We had chocolate cake and ice cream for desert, and they gave me a lovely card.
I'm not used to people - my friends, namely - doing such nice things for me. My heart just wants to sing with how much I love them. Chris even offered to hop on a plane and come and find me if I (really) need him. It's odd to have people being so nice.
My friends here pull into question the lessons that I've learned throughout life. In short, I have trust issues. Major trust issues. I have a hard time believing that people could ever want to do something nice for me just to be nice. It's not because I don't believe I'm worth it, but becaue I have very little faith in humankind.
So, naturally, I'm a bit suspicious. I have a voice in my head telling me that my friends don't actually care about me, they're just doing this because they feel they have to.
People are always nice when someone is going away, the voice says,
you are, after all, leaving. For all I know this could all be all superficial. When a person is leaving, you don't need substance to back anything up. They'll just be gone tomorrow.
Would you act like this if I was staying?
This is the difference that this trip has made. That vioce is smaller now. What's more, I don't believe it. I choose not to. I choose to put my faith in my friends. I choose to trust them. I choose to believe that I am loved.
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"You don't have to say goodbye - just see you in August".
Probably the best advice I've been given in a while. I'll try to remember that.
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I survived Monday.
I've come down with a cold - and I have a sneaking suspicion that it came from
Chris.
Last night I went to bed at seven. When my alarm rang at 6:15 I felt terrible. I messaged James and told him that I wouldn't be able to come in because I was dying. He suggested that I start at ten, and so I did. I re-set my alarm and went back to bed.
My alarm didn't go off. I woke up at nine thirty and ended up getting to work fourty minutes late. I didn't get in trouble, though - James is far too nice for that. In the end we still finished all the work and handled Monday more or less effectively.
Sunday was hard. It was my last day at church for seven weeks. Saturday was difficult as well because I had to say goodbye to
Chris for two months. He did offer to hop on a plane and find me if I (really) need him - and it's comments like that that make it harder to say goodbye.
I hate being emotional. See, this is why I was happy not having close friends in Vancouver - it saves you a bunch of heartache in the end.
So, much of Sunday was spent tearing up at random moments of the day and sobbing onto various shoulders. It's just so hard to say goodbye to a place that I have become so comfortable in. Not just comfortable, but happy.
And as a little aside, it is terribly inconvinient not having a credit card. I can't book hostels, I can't book plane flights, I can't do anything. I still haven't heard anything from the bank as to whether or not I've been approved for a debit card.
Tomorrow I start my packing. No, I'm not just being organized - I'm busy for most of the week in the evenings, and I'll have to pack when I can.
It's interesting that we can dread so much something that, in itself, isn't that big of a deal. It's the same reason I cried when washing out the last jar of jelly from my grandma - it's what it means. Yes, she really is gone. Yes, I really am leaving.
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Today is an exciting day.
I have booked a plane ticket to Venice. Cost me £29.99 before taxes, £44 including. I leave in nine days from Liverpool airport.
I can't believe it. I am in shock. So many emotions are running through my head - this is all actually going to happen. I need to pack my things next week. I will be leaving my house, my flatmates, and Manchester for seven weeks.
I must have missed something before. I didn't realize I would actually be leaving. I haven't expirienced these emotions for a very long time, since I left Vancouver - they even seem more intense this time.
The plan for Italy is this: Start in Venice, take the train to Verona, and then head to Florence. Close to that is Pisa, down to Siena if I have time, and then Rome. After Rome comes Pompeii (so excited: I'm a geologist/historian at heart) and then to a place called the Isle of Capris (just google it. It's gorgeous). After that I'm off to Greece in the cheapest way possible (excluding walking). I may have to head back up to Milan and catch a flight to Athens.
I am going backpacking. In nine days. This is insane.
I must also confess that I bought a video game magazine two days ago. It had Link on the cover, and was the issue all about E3 (biggest viideo game expo in the world). Has tons of information on the new system for Nintendo as well. I can't help it, I really am a 15 year old boy at heart.
And on a final note: England and Sweden tied 2-2 last night. England should have won - the last goal from Sweden was within the last few minutes of the game. It wasn't even a decent goal, it just bounced in. The England team has also lost Mike Owens for at least five months - he's injured his knee. The next game is on Sunday and is against Equador.
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World Cup Fever has gripped the nation!
And it's really hard not to catch it.
I must confess that I was at a pub watching yesterday's match against Trinidad and Tobego (probably the most English thing you can do), and I highly enjoyed myself. It was fantastic. I want to go every single match. When England got their first goal it felt like the entire country was celebrating. Fantastic fantastic fantastic!
This country is ridiculous. There are England flags everywhere, and I mean everywhere. It's like Vancouver with the Canucks, but to the very extreme. It seems like every car that passes has a flag poking out the window, and at least 1 out of every 3 people is wearing a football jersey. I saw a car awhile ago that had the entire hood of the car painted. It's all quite excellent.
One man did try to ruin my fun, though. He was very drunk and was wandering around hollering random things. He happened to stop right infront of me so I couldn't see the screen, and my automatic reaction was to yell at him to move. He gave me a really dirty look and then wandered off.
After about five minutes he must have realized that he had just adhered to an order given to him by a girl about half his size, and he came back to tell me off. He just stood there red in the face screaming at me for a good five minutes. I completely ignored him and let him have his temper tantrum - didn't even look at him. Eventually he left. When you don't yell back they don't have much to go on.
Takes a big man to threaten a girl. Especially one who could tae kwon do his ass from here to oblivian. If only he knew.
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The weather here has been beautiful for the past few days. It started on Wednesday. It's been terrible for my excersize routine - instead of heading home and going jogging, I've taken to finding a spot on the grass in Picadilly Gardens and taking a nap in the sun.
Today has been the best day of all. It reached thirty degrees and the sky was nerely cloudless. That is, of course, minus the white fluffy ones (
cumulus clouds for those of us that are geographically minded). I couldn't be bothered to put sunscreen on, and the result is that I am a lovely shade of red.
I've been up to more than usual this week. On Wednesday I saw
X-Men, which I enjoyed largely because it was filmed not only in Vancouver, but Tsawwassen as well. It was fantastic, but very odd as well. Exciting in a way.
I couldn't stop fidgiting throughout the entire thing. It's all in an attempt to stop biting my nails which, up until a few days ago, was going very well.
And I've done something with people every single night since then. Tonight I had an offer as well, but I turned it down to be here with you lovely people. I had eleven emails in my inbox, and that was only from about a week. It's nice, but it really saps a lot out of you when you have to sit on the computer for three or four hours to finish replying to them all.
Plans to go backpacking are finally starting to get rolling (I leave in three weeks). I'm going shopping for travelling stuff on Monday, which is bound to be expensive. I'm hoping that once I start getting everything together the excitement will kick in, because right now it's quite overshadowed by anxiety. And a lot of it.
In truth I'm absolutely petrified. And that far outweighs my excitement. It just all seems so impossible at the moment. I know it isn't, and I know it won't be. My head knows it, anyways. But I think my heart missed the memo.
I'm balancing on a tight emotional string at the moment. This week has been very up and down. I feel like I'm on the edge of a cliff and am about to jump off. I've got wings, but there's no guarentee that they'll work. And if they don't, I don't think that anyone will bother to catch me.
That's a lie. Someone will catch me. I'm just not sure who.
God would. God will. He's probably just waiting for me to jump.
I'm afraid that I've been taking my instability out on other people. I feel like I'm trying to rely on people who really don't want to (or can't be) a support for me. It leaves me feeling guilty for being intensely emotional, as if it's my fault. I feel bad even writing this entry. Like I'm dumping my problems on people who don't care.
It's such a lie. Somewhere along the line I've gotten it in my head that people don't actually care about me for me, they just care because they should. Reluctantly.
In truth I'm just trying to be the best friend that I can be. The best person I can be. It seems to all go wrong far too often. I've learned in the past few days that I feel I need to earn people's love. And now that I've realized that, I'm not sure what to do about it.
So this trip is turning into what I expected it to be - a huge learning expirience. I've learned a lot so far, but I'm quite far from being done. The first part was discovereing freedom. Now the second part will be spent on becoming emotionally strong again (was I ever?), on establishing a firm foundation on which I can stand. It's all a bit shaky at the moment. But I'm getting stronger.
This is why I'm emotional, folks. Because I've been doing way too much self discovery in too short a time. But I'm still happy. Deep down there's this joy - this joy of living, this joy of being here. And it truly is the core of my being.
I love you all.
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This has been a long, tiring week. In every single sense. Spiritually, emotionally, physically. I'm pretty much drained. I don't feel I've had the support that I need to cope - but then again, I can really only rely on myself. At least I can control whether or not I let myself down.
And so the week ends sitting at Joy's house by myself eating chicken curry (without corriander and extra spicy). Rather alone, rather pathetic.
That being said I did spend most of the day with friends. We drove about an hour to get to the "beach", not a real beach, but more a tiny plot of sand. But I had fun, it was a lovely day. I felt slightly out of place, though. I only was invited when I was griping about having been cancelled on and therefore having no one to spend the day with. So I feel like I was invited out of sympathy, a charity case. I know it's not true. But at quarter to one in the morning and at the end of a rather horrible week, everything seems depressing.
So let's look at the positives, shall we? I've been accepted to UBC. The sun was shining today. I got to sit in the grass of my garden. I made Vicki happy by bringing her cookies and a card (she's in the final stages of finishing her degree and is working more or less nonstop). I had a cup of tea that I liked today. I had curry for dinner. I'm going backpacking through Italy and Greece in less than a month. I'm not as alone as I feel.
There are always upsides. Always, always, always. And to every single person that is reading this, I love you.
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