advice,
Back from Korea- Surviving the after effects of being away for a long time
Getting home, into a queen sized bed, in a room that is fit
for a queen, and by that I mean in size, all feels amazing. No matter how much
of a traveller, it is still amazing to have someplace to call home. No matter
how much I love seeing places or how much I love sitting on a plane for hours
on end- that is a lie by the way because let’s be honest who enjoys being
dehydrated, lacking sleep, having cramped legs and bottom and looking overall
as good as the character from The Covenant, I am happy to properly sit and
enjoy the feel of ‘home’. A cup of tea in hand, a book, music, the smell of
cooked food, people that have known me all their life- this is all the elements
that make ‘home’ for me.
Having enjoyed the feel of home for at least 2 weeks now,
and reality settling in, bills to pay, houses to move, getting back into that
old routine I had set up and realised that I missed, I am also realising that this
all feels strange to me now. Kind of like when you miss important bits in
someone’s life and you don’t know how to greet them because you are aware you
have been out of their lives for a while- somehow the familiarity is still
there but there is something hindering that long, friendly hug that you want to
give them and instead settle for an awkward handshake or pat on the back. Reality
and home is nice, but after 8 months you tend to have residues of them still
stuck onto you. I can’t say how many times I have looked on the street and seen
Korean fashion everywhere- probably because right now the Korean fashion is the
fashion rave of the moment. Korean beauty products certainly seem to be. I
still have bits and pieces of things, including the way I act, that are still
stuck in Korea. They’re slowly going away, and somehow, I am sad to see them go
away. Having acquired them all throughout this amazing experience and still
experiencing them, is a great proof for my own self. That I had actually been
there, that it did happen.
So, getting back into things is decently difficult after
spending some time away from them. Especially since a lot of things have
happened around here (Brexit, new PM, blah blah). Being on another continent
kind of made me feel as if I’d been living on a remoted island away from
civilisation, when in fact I had been living in the heart of it. So how I get
back into things?
1.
Moving
Moving is not much fun really. I mean yes,
you get the new fresh start of things so it does not feel as if you have to get
back again to being used to a place you lived in, at the same time it does not
exactly feel like home. So make it at home. Moving is a great way to start
afresh. And I don’t mean yes, you have to move to feel better about being away
from things. No, just change some things around the house. Make it ‘look new’
if not new completely. Change up the furniture arrangement, buy that new duvet,
get fresh bed sheets, buy new picture frames (all those polaroids have to go
somewhere don’t they). Get creative.
2.
Walk
Yes, walk. It is a great way to get reacquainted
with the places you have known like the back of your hand but now seem more
like a dream. A walk through the city centre, a walk into that park, pub,
cinema etc. Plus, you get your daily dose of exercise, so why not kill two
birds with one stone?
3.
Visit some of your favourite places
For me I can say, city centre, cinema and
the library were my favourite places. And now that I am back at it again when
visiting them, I get the chance to fall in love with them all over again. It
reminds me why I had been loving them so much, and it gives me a new
opportunity to look at them with fresh eyes and notice little things I have not
before. So get back on those horses and see what has become of your favourite
places. What do you know, maybe on the way you find new ones, or even fall more
in love with the old ones.
4.
Call up people you have been spending time with
before
It might come off as a surprise- or not,
but I am fairly bad at keeping in contact with people. I don’t do it on
purpose, I just find it very hard to keep looking at my phone whilst I have
other things to do. Not like I have been dead, and with social media it was
quite easy not to lose contact with them. Yes, it feels weird at the beginning,
because communicating through messages for months is still not at intimate and
close as communicating face to face, however, it gave me an opportunity to keep
up with them and not encounter awkward answers such as ‘my boyfriend and I broke
up last spring’ when you ask them how they’ve been. But meeting up with them
now that I have the chance is a great way to catch up properly.
5.
Start afresh
Nothing stops you. Make a new routine,
enjoy new things. I have realised I have changed quite a bit during this year,
impossible not to. Nothing says I have to keep up with the old routine. I just
have to make a new one, change things up a bit. Start afresh. (yes, that means
now I brush my teeth after I eat. No, it does not mean I eat lunch for dinner
and dinner for lunch…maybe breakfast for dinner)
So these are all the things I do/did to ease myself into
that certain lifestyle I had up until leaving for Korea. It was not that hard,
the thing that probably made it a bit worse was my own imagination that things
have changed that much when in the end they did not. I did. So I had to figure
out a way to get this new person to fit back into this unchanged scenery.
Lox
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