I have found being uncomfortably honest on the internet to be the single best insight into how wonderful people can be. Including people who I would not necessarily expect support from (because I feel that they do not owe me anything, not because they are not wonderful supportive people in their own right). So this update starts with a thank you. Thank you for making me feel less alone, and checking in on me, and reminding me that just being here is immensely brave so I can stop sweating the life organisation stuff and just marvel at my own achievements for a little while.
You want to know how I'm doing (hopefully) and I want to tell you.
I have friends. Proper friends, close friends, who I spend my evenings with and tell my feelings to and make plans for my birthday with. I am very lucky.
I go to yoga. I eat well and enough, I've had a lot of good food. I get to sleep before midnight (usually). I smile a lot and laugh even more. I'm learning Arabic. I have time to keep my side hustles going and I'm working to keep everything moving forward. I have my visa, and anyone who knows me will know that I was convinced this process would be an endless struggle and it turns out actually I could totally handle it.
I have seen some of the country and I have plans to see places nearby and go on trips and I will make sure I pack as much I can into the time I have here. I will also make sure I give myself time to rest and be and remember that my life does not have to be a permanent travel diary, I do live and work here, after all.
But just because this great adventure has turned into a wonderfully stable life in which I feel settled doesn't mean I don't also have some bad days. Days where I wish I could just get on the 11A bus and go home and sit in bed and watch TV all evening. Like the day I text my friend these complaints about the cats on my street:
The laughter was deserved. I do get stared at a lot, but then I am pretty noticeable. I was having a very bad day and I'm not usually driven to getting angry at cats on the street just because people look at me when I go outside. Also please ignore the auto-correction I was still walking at the time because this information needed to be passed on immediately.
I don't really feel lonely. I don't know whether that's surprising or not. I suppose I don't really have time to, I value time on my own and I work on things I care a lot about and mostly I feel like I don't spend enough time on anything.
Jordan is different of course. I don't know how to tell you how other than to sound like a patronising bitch and say 'well, it's not Leeds'. Jordan is different but I am here and I was not running from anything, so I have not left my life behind as much as I now have to carry it out remotely.
I don't really experience my days any differently to the way I did at home. I'm trying to make friends and navigate a lot of new ways of doing things but I am who I was before and I do not intend to make huge adjustments to that. The 'shock' in culture shock suggests that I would not expect it to be so different to home. I did expect it to be different and it was, so I am not shocked. Everything is new but everything has been new before and I am much more confident in my ability to deal with it than I ever have been.
I am happy and settled and I've made enough mistakes before to not make them again. There will always be good times and bad times but as someone who had a very extensive period of bad times I feel that I can at least begin to be excited about what the next year will bring. I'm trying to stop being so convinced that something terrible is about to happen just because this feeling of peace and well-being has been so alien to me before.
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