4

4 months of absence over here. 4 years of blogging here. I love how things line up so beautifully and I just can't help but smile that I can come back with a little post on a day like this. Let's forget that I haven't been blogging for a while now (it turns out I'm a pretty good liar. Breaking radio silence, yeah right) but this blog has been alive for 4 whole years. It's so strange to think that I've created it when I was 18 years old in this very same room I'm sitting now at but that me from 4 years ago and me of today are different in so many ways. I look different, I act different and I feel different.This is one of the things I love having a blog the most - being able to see myself growing in life and being able to see where I was at a certain time a year or two ago.

So where was I for these four months? Well, it's difficult to say, really. I was here, always here and I've tried so many times to open up a new window and try to write something, but it just never worked out the way I wanted and all these texts I've hoped to publish are still left somewhere in the archives. I've had so many things to write about and in one way it's a little sad that the Summer which has been so wonderful hasn't been documented here at all, but on the other hand I can keep it in my head forever. Here's hoping that my memory won't fail me. We say it all the time, I'm busy, I'm busy, oh I'm so busy and it's seems that being busy nowadays is a thing that we all are, it's so difficult to escape and since pretty much all of us live this crazy lifestyle of busyness, we even have to plan meeting our friends in advance. It's crazy, isn't it? So that's what happened, I fell into the busyness and it's not as easy to escape as I could have hoped. Or maybe I just use it as an excuse, maybe I just didn't feel the need to write here at all because since I've had so much going on, I have notebooks full of thoughts but nothing made here to the blog. 

It feels like Summer was never really here now that it's raining outside like it does in a real November manner, but this Summer was pretty awesome. It wasn't really at all about some crazy events, music festivals or the trips, it was all about the people I've met. From the outside it could look like a pretty boring Summer - work, University and a couple of little trips thrown in but as a person that was the one to experience it all, I can say that it was one hell of a Summer even though I've left my city only for couple of days and I've spent much more time in University than a "normal" student should in the summertime on the summer break. As I was responsible for coordinating my beautiful team of freshmen mentors, I've had things to do in the University and around it but most of the days I've spent there were just because I was actually having fun there, as crazy as that could sound. But I guess we all choose our kind of fun and for me this summer was exactly the kind of one I've needed. Somehow in the middle of the Summer I've met some beautiful and wonderful people that I've been studying with for years now but never thought of having them as my friends and I've got to remember just how beautiful and fulfilling new friendships are. Then there were nights with guitars, fires and songs that make the forests echo, there were little road trips, the sea and the laughter. I was also forced to leave my comfort zone more times than I could count and I've done it and I'm proud of myself for how much I've grown. And never for a minute I've felt lonely this Summer with all these beautiful people around me. 

And then the Autumn came back and I came back to the University that I haven't even left for the Summer. The autumn came back quickly as it always does, streets became full with people, with students, my university become once again full of sounds, of people, of new unfamiliar faces and I began my third year there as the leaves were changing color. In the middle of my beautiful birthday month I went to see Prague, to explore one new city from my bucket list and it was wonderful.

Now I'm 22 years old, I'm still spending all of my days in uni and making the best of it, seeing it in the change of the seasons and loving it more and more. I'm still busy, because escaping the busyness is quite challenging as I've said; I read a lot, write a lot and sleep not really enough, have classes in french, english and spanish and sometimes I speak in all 3 of them at the same time. Every day I create new and new plans, one of them is always to come back writing here because it used to be a part of my days, a happy one but I guess I got tired of it and lost the joy it should have brought me. I create plans, change them and overthink everything I say, do or don't do just like a normal twenty something person does. 

BREAKING RADIO SILENCE

Hello, bonjour, labas, hola!  I‘m hopefully back after something that has definitely been the longest break I‘ve ever had from this blog and I hope it won‘t ever happen again, the long break I mean. I can't really answer myself why this break happened even though I've tried to find an answer many times. The truth is that I‘ve had two busiest and craziest months and blogging sadly didn‘t really fit into my schedule and after I finished my uni year and had a tiny little bit more time, I completely failed to remember how does blogging work. Over these couple of months I came to see how my blog is doing and I've had so many plans but then one week passed by, two, four and before I knew it, it's already midsummer and it's a little bit hard to believe this. I guess I was living my life more than I had time to document it which is quite sad because I wish I could remember everything that has happened in great detail because the memories have started to mix up a little bit already. But I've been doing really well, I love my life as a little busy bee.

A couple of weeks ago I twisted my ankle and was literally forced to spend a couple of days in my bed because, well, I couldn‘t really walk and among watching the TV series and reading, I was also thinking about life (as I always do) and I had some time to reflect and look back on these past couple of months and man what a journey it‘s been. Come this March, the journey on my self growth began when I decided to step out of my comfort zone more and more and this has been the best thing. So these two months when I‘ve been absent from this space been a real mix of everything thrown together – studies, work, exams, students‘ representation and loads of new people. In those two months I‘ve been working, spent hours upon hours with my books of studying in the library for my exams, passed all  7 of them, finished my second year in Uni, found my team of freshmen mentors, congratulated my friends graduating the University, saw one friend getting married and cried just how beautiful the wedding was, unexpectedly found new great friends, learned to play the foosball and spent many hours playing it, began planning the freshmen summer camp, bought my new glasses, had one mini road trip, lived alone for a while, finally had time to catch up with my friends, spent couple of nights in the summer house, ate strawberries, had breakfasts on my balconies, drank a little bit too much of coffee, stressed out a bit, read books, binge watched and finally finished some TV series like Sex and the city and Glee, found my new favorite guilty pleasure – The Office. I've also found myself in some pretty crazy situations like the ones where I had to share my experiences with the new groups of freshmen mentors. It was crazy to catch myself speaking in front of the group of people, trying to teach them things I didn't know I knew this well and let me remind you that months ago I was the person who would rather hide in a cave than speak in front of the public. I can't say it wasn't scary because it was but it felt amazing afterwards. 

 Now that I‘m writing this, I understand how much I can‘t remember anymore and all of my days just blurred into one big something and sometimes I can‘t understand where the day begins and where it ends. But I love it so much. I was always hoping to be a person who has things to do, who is busy and yes, I understand how unhealthy it is not to know how to relax but I‘m working on it. But when my days begin in the university with one group of people, then I meet a different friend and then eventually I‘m on my way to a different city with a different friend just to see the sunset, these are the moments that are just so so wonderful. I can't fully explain to myself what happened with me or my life but from an introverted person I turned into someone who is always surrounded by people and enjoys it a lot. I enjoy spending my time alone but now I feel the happiest when I come back home and I try to look through a day in my head and I see how many people I‘ve talked to or laughed with and then I can calmly fall asleep, because this is how I want to spend my Summers, how I want to spend my life. 

THREE YEARS AFTER HIGH SCHOOL

Last Friday I was walking to work and I saw these cars with balloons on them and beautiful people inside who were celebrating their traditional last bell of the high school day. And then I got chills all over my body when I realized that I was one of these kids three years ago. Not that cars with balloons were involved, but I realized that I was a high school student three whole years ago. Although I still remember that day really clearly, to me it meant even more than the actual prom day when I got my high school diploma, on that day at the end of May I realized that I was actually leaving everything familiar, all my 12 years of school, behind me. I didn‘t want to graduate high school like others did, I was a bit too scared to face the world. But I remember that day I felt so grown up, it felt like the world is my oyster and I have so many opportunities coming my way. Now I understand that I wasn‘t at all grown up and these three years after high school have taught me much more than high school ever did.

Now that I think about it, I think that my high school self wouldn‘t probably be able to talk to myself that I‘m nowadays. My 18-year-old self wouldn‘t believe and understand that I somehow became someone who reminds of someone I was always hoping to become. She wouldn‘t believe that I found so many ways to surprise myself, to challenge and overcome myself. And that I wasn‘t as grown up as I thought I was.

People say that life doesn‘t stop after high school and it‘s so so true. I remember when I was senior in high school, I had this quote hanging up on my wall saying that high school is only one chapter of your life and I tried to convince myself with it every day. And it actually is so true. Once you leave high school you actually have the world in your hands, the only difference is that now you have to do everything yourself. No teachers saving your ass, no parents telling you what to do every step of the way, there‘s only you and the world. You are responsible for the choices you make, for the mistakes you make and for the people you choose to surround yourself with.

The most important thing is that life after high school is so much different. I feels so scary to leave that little bubble you called home for 12 years of your life and dive into the big world, but once you close these doors, you find out that there is a whole new world waiting for you. For those who move out to a different country or city, it feels like an even bigger change but I also believe the way we change inside matters the most. Once you enter a new world, you can meet so many people you‘ve always dreamt of knowing and calling your friends, you can be the person you‘ve always wanted to be and there is no one who remembers you when you were 7 years old and wore this ugly yellow wig to a school party, no one who remembers what kind of teenager were you, where you failed and succeeded. And it is amazing.

But as I was reminded of all of this last Friday, I got chills all over my body just like I got them now writing this. How can it be that the people I graduated with are going to be graduating University next year? How can it be that I‘m about to finish the second (third to be exact) year of Uni? Some of these people I graduated with have children, some have more than one, some are engaged or married and I can still remember how they looked the first day of school. I know for sure that I wouldn't want to come back to high school but I would love to make the time slow down a little bit more because right now this is really not the chapter of my life I wish to leave ever, I just love it a little bit too much.