Change

I'm writing this on my bed in Harrogate. I have a horrible cold, my limbs ache and I have a pain in my lungs when I breathe. For that reason I am balancing a hot water bottle on my shoulder blades and I suppose that on some level that's quite funny firstly because it looks silly and secondly because it keeps getting too hot and burning me so I go 'ow ow ow' and pull it off. Then I put it back on a bit later. Hilarious.

So. Back 'home'. The big cheese that is Harrogate. Truth be told I don't like Harrogate. Sure it's a 'nice' place, but that's the problem. All the niceness is superficial and a fabulous cover-up for the same difficulties that characterise any town/city. Anyway, a rant at the rich upper-clARss of Harrogate was not my main objective in this blog.

I was going to talk about change. A subject that anyone who knows me will know that I despise. I struggle to cope when I can't go to the restaurant we had planned to go to because it's full and we didn't make reservations so we have to go somewhere else. I know that everyone finds change difficult, but for me, even the smallest change from something I was expecting or planning for seems like a monumental thing to come to terms with. I have been known to cry because my mum cooked something different for tea than what she originally planned. Call me crazy but that's me. So you can imagine how wonderful I'm feeling about the fact that I'm not going to be a student with many of my friends again, that I won't be living with many of my friends ever again, and that I have to go away again next year to a country I don't know much about with people I don't know who speak a language that is not my own. Wonderful being sarcastic here. In case you couldn't tell.

Leaving Durham yesterday was very hard. I feel like as students we live some kind of schizophrenic double life. Durham is my home. But no it isn't, Harrogate it my home. But it isn't really any more, I have a life in Durham. But I haven't really left Harrogate officially so Harrogate is my home. But... You see? Caught between two worlds. If you'll excuse the melodrama. I can't help it, I am a melodramatic person. Like it or lump it.

I don't like change. But, as I have been reminded numerous times in the last few weeks, life is all about change. It is impossible to live a life where nothing changes and, however cliched it may be, it is often those changes to make us who we are. I am scared about next year, I don't mind admitting that. A big part of me does not want to go and yet I know that it is the right thing for me to go. I don't know why but I know it is. And there are alot of good things about going away. I get to experience life in another culture, I will be teaching which will be good experience, I will learn more Spanish, I will get time away from things in England, I will get to travel around Europe abit and see more places, I will have lots of time to do things I don't have time for here for example photography and writing. You see, there are alot of good things about next year. I know that God will be with me wherever I am and whatever I'm doing and even though I am still scared, I would be more scared without that knowledge!

Big changes are always difficult. I can remember feeling so disorientated in freshers week. I had a permanent headache from the effort involved with trying to be friendly to everyone. I got so fed up of saying 'Hi I'm Kat, I'm at Mary's and I do languages'. But now, even with that difficult beginning, I love Durham and didn't want to come back here. I feel like I have changed so much since being at uni. In some ways for good and maybe in others not so good, but the point is that that huge big change I had to go through to get from sixth form to uni had to happen so that I could end up where I am. I feel like I should put some cheesy analogy here, but I can neither think of a good one, nor bring myself to write it down, so think of your own. For me, I know that any change I go through I will never have to go through alone, and I also know that somewhere down the line things will get better. It's just that the initial wrench away from what I am used to is always the hardest part.

I guess that coming home and being ill doesn't help much either!