This year my goals are also relatively simple:
#1 Go check out the women's rock-climbing group
#2 Make more alone time for myself (the opposite problem from last year)
#3 Write in my journal at least once a month
#4 Visit a new country (Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria, Israel, Iceland? I'm looking at you…we'll see)
#5 Find a cafe I can work in that's not on the other side of the city (needs free W-Lan, soymilk, power outlets and at least one vegan snack)
#6 No really, study German more. Memrise at least once a week, sign up for a German class (Spring?) once I get my act together.
#7 Finally get a library card here!
#8 Stop going places and doing things I don't really feel like doing just because everyone else is doing them. I am a victim of peer pressure, it's true.
I need to also write in here more. When I lived in Prague, the words seemed to just flow out of me, but somehow I find that in Berlin my head is always just filled with noise. I disallowed Google from finding this blog again so I can pretend it's safe to whine about my more personal woes as I please, ja? Okay!
How is Berlin? It's complicated. I hopped an impulse flight to Brighton last weekend, however, and as soon as the plane took off I felt calmer than I have in a long time, so now I'm feeling the urge for another longer solo travel adventure. I woke up there and sat in my favorite old cafe, where I used to write all my psychology essays, and wrote in my journal for two hours, wandered around my old city, looked at the sea and had a really nice and calm day, some much needed alone time with no fear of being interrupted by any sort of unpleasantness. I love Berlin and logistically it makes sense for me to stay here, but I need to change some things and I'm working on figuring out exactly what they are.
With such a huge party culture, it's pretty easy to feel isolated when you find, one weekend, that you're not interested in getting totally wasted, again, to head to the weekend's coolest party. Sometimes, with exceptions of course, I worry that maybe I have a lot of drinking friends and not so many friends who know who I actually am, or care. Of course, on the other hand, it's also partially my responsibility to let people know who I actually am, but hanging out drunk in huge groups all the time doesn't always allow for so much personal connection.
Berliners are really busy people, there is an endless amount to do here, to discover, lots of people to meet, and that is both awesome and totally overwhelming. It's hard to commit yourself to staying in on a Saturday night when there is always some once a year event every weekend, that you really just don't want to miss. So you go, and you go the next weekend as well, and then you realize you've been on the go so much you really haven't had the time to think about anything that's happened for more than 5 minutes in a long time.
I'm out of survival mode for the first time in 6 years, and that means I've achieved something. It means I have a job, I have a visa, I have a flat, a group of friends and some sense of security for all the things I need to live. It also means that my mind isn't taken up by these urgent survival needs, no moving plans, no visa applications for awhile, no flat viewings, Fulbright essays, German classes, or new jobs to get used to, etc., for the first time in a really long time, so now I actually have to think about LIFE. Oh dear.
Let's not get too emo though, friends. I've reached a turning point. Things are a lot better, existential crisis-wise, than when I used to write in here when I was 22. Life doesn't feel quite so unknown and scary, I feel a bit more confident in my ability to make decisions and have collected a lot more life experience. I generally know who I am, now, I know roughly what I want (or at least what I don't want) and I'm learning to realize my mistakes...maybe not always before I make them, but at least more quickly into the impending mess.
A lot of the things I've been spending my time on are not so mentally stimulating anymore. When you get unhappy it's just a sign you need to change something, stop lying to yourself, stop saying "should" and get your shit together. I made a pledge to myself that I will learn how to stay in one place for awhile and make things work. IT WILL HAPPEN.
The world is ripe with possibility?
Na ja, at least there are these big ducks down the street from my apartment.
