Cast your eye back, around seven years, to October the 8th, 2002, and this is what you'll find: The beginning: Ok. My name is Vanina. I'm 18, I'm italian but have been living in Paris for the last 7 years. Actually, I lived in Paris until 2 weeks ago. I just moved to London to attend university (SOAS, which ROCKS)...
My first month with my blog I posted 75 times. My life in the UK - what turned out to be quite a big bit of my life - had just started. I was excited, and happy, and doing all kinds of things I wasn't meant to do. I've become a lot more sensible, and sometimes I feel boring. But in many ways I'm still the crazy 18 year old who moved to London. I still have (some) dreams, amidst the fog of feeling lost. I'm also a lot more fucked up than I was seven years ago, or maybe just fucked up in different ways. Or maybe it's just all come out...
It feels weird to think I'm 25. When I was 18 I thought the world was mine for the taking, and then I discovered that it never actually happens that way. You make do, you try your best, and you adapt. When I was 18, living by myself for the first time, going out, partying, drinking, smoking, I felt like a grown-up. Now, every morning I wake up and feel more like a child. There's so much still to work out! So much I still need to understand!
A lot has changed. It's weird, but I almost I feel protective of that 18 year old me, somehow so innocent (amidst all the naughtiness). I might be disillusioned, but I do realise that so far I've mostly been pretty fucking lucky. And I thank my lucky stars I made that move, I left Paris behind and came here. I cannot even imagine a life not in this country, not with these people.
Things this end of Oxford are becoming a bit difficult. Or maybe frustrating is a better word; I'm frustrated with myself, with people, with work, with the world. The problem isn't a lack of willingness to change direction - the willingness is all there, because I know it needs to happen - but a lack of confidence in my ability not even to take a new direction, but to pick one. I've felt lost for too long, and somehow I'm having a really hard time finding my way again. And of course this is affecting all other aspects of my life, and everything is just becoming too much. This complete lack of self-esteem makes every action so difficult. It doesn't help that we're all a bit lost, with all of our own problems, and inevitable clashes/crashes happen.
I know I need to do something else, I know that. Where I am with my life right now just makes me unhappy, but somehow being unhappy isn't enough for me to start doing something else. It's hard to see the bigger picture, and so I get stuck on the small, inconsequential, and upsetting details. And by doing this I do no good to anybody, and I start feeling like dead-weight.
I keep thinking I've sunk to the bottom, and now I can only go up; but it never seems to be the case. Maybe it's time for me to ask for some help.
The University Parks are the one constant of my everyday life in Oxford. I am very lucky in that I live right next to one of the entrances, and my work happens to be very near the entrance on the other side of the parks (a whopping seven minutes away!); also, my office has a wall made out entirely of glass filled with a view of trees and lawns. And so every morning I cross the parks, spend my days looking at them, and until sunset started happening before 5pm, I also crossed them back on my way home.
They provide me with endless entertainment, particularly in the morning, around 8.40am, when I see a whole series of odd characters. There's the Polish couple walking in the opposite direction who, around once a week, walk down the path screaming at each other in Polish (the next day they're always holding hands). There are lots of joggers, even though there's definitely fewer now that it's getting cold; my favourites are the man who must be in his 70s running around in very short shorts, and the mum running in tiny lycra clothing pushing a pram complete with very covered up baby (with very rosy cheeks indeed). During the summer there was a multitude of other mums with their prams; I now only see them in the afternoons, from our window, participating in some odd exercising class, with babies and prams in tow. There are the dog walkers, usually very posh looking North Oxford housewives, in full rain gear and wellies (and with associated poop scoop). There's the nice security guard who appears regularly at the gate near home, waiting to catch naughty students cycling through (to my great joy, bikes cannot enter the parks, whether ridden or not) - we actually exchange hellos now. Occasionally there's a young man wearing long leather gloves and leather boots, with a falcon on a string. And of course, there's the students walking in both directions, going to the Science Area or to the Colleges and Departments in North Oxford; they usually include an English girl or two wearing flip flops in November, and the very young looking undergrad in the beige duffle coat.
It's great fun walking through the parks.
