I think sometimes you can be scared to be happy, for fear that it will only be temporary. Good things come and go and when you get so many good things in concession with each other, surely your time of fortune is set to be up soon. That's how I feel about this summer. This summer has literally been the most incredible three months of my life. I have never ever felt so free; from responsibility, from obligations, from everything. My only obligation at the moment is to be happy. But it has to end and I have to leave. Okay, happiness can be a choice but when everything that makes you happy is soon not going to be in reach, what can you do? Because I've been given this life to live for three months, this dream and now I have to wake up and leave.
So I moved to Prague for the summer as you may or may not know. And in all of that time I have become the person I was always meant to be; my happiest self. The thing is, happiness and freedom come hand in hand together, and the key to both of those things is letting go. Sure we all have baggage, we wouldn't be who we are now without a few suitcases of troubles dragging behind us but its learning to brush off the dust, open them up and free them from you, rather than carrying them and letting the weight of them drag you down. But I learnt this summer that perspective is everything too. Looking back on things that happened in the past is all part of growing, but how you are viewing them is all that matters. To be blunt... Shit happens. The sooner you accept that the sooner you can learn to let go of it. Everything happens for a reason and if you open your mind enough, life will reward you with new hellos and new experiences that will become the life you know now.
So I am leaving Prague in only a week and a half and it's going to be one of the hardest things I will ever have to do in my life. I am settled here, I'm happy and I'm at home. The people I've met have become part of my everyday life, the freedom of having my own apartment with my best friends; the ability to travel where and whenever I can, and of course best of all... the ridiculously cheap price of beer! All of these things I am giving up to leave when it's the last thing I want to do. Why don't I just stay then some would ask? But sometimes life doesn't work in our favour and no matter how much we want something we cant always just get it. We have to work for it. So my temporary plan at the moment... come home and sort my life out. To be exact, I have the goal of living abroad again by the start of the year. I hope that by the end of January, I will be settled in either Prague or Berlin au pairing, because they are my favourite cities in the world and why not?! My family and friends mean the absolute world to me, but England doesn't. My heart belongs elsewhere now and I learnt once I started traveling that I could never feel truly at home again, because I have an adventurous heart that belongs to new experiences, and the people I have met along the way. Besides, when it comes to family and friends, distance is irrelevant when people are that important.
Okay so I might just be talking myself into believing this, but I need to see this big step of leaving as a positive thing. Not see it as everything that I love I am leaving, but rather that I just have something to work my way back to getting again. Use this as my motivation. It's going to be so hard, and it's hard to put into words. I need to appreciate what I've been lucky enough to experience, because right now I'm at my happiest. Nothing lasts forever but I am so so grateful for this opportunity that came my way. I have changed, because my mind-set has changed. I've learnt to live in the moment and it's the greatest and most freeing feeling I've ever felt. That's why I love traveling, and living in an unfamiliar place; you are completely free and you get to meet the most incredible people. It would take so long to list the amount of people I've been lucky enough to meet, like passing ships in the night who I may or may not ever speak to again. That's the price you pay for traveling. Accepting that every hello will either end in a goodbye or a see you soon. And it all just depends on which you choose. I choose not to say goodbye to Prague... But rather see you soon. 
Sometimes motivation is one of life's biggest struggles. Occasionally we'll only be able to be proactive when life slaps us around the face with something that makes us realise the capacity of the importance of change. We can become so comfortable in our little habits and routines and get so used to talking about what we need to do, yet never get around to it. We think that time is fundamentally infinite and yet time is the most fragile thing that controls our lives. Everything can change in a minuscule of a second and our biggest regrets are not always the things we've done, but the things we never did. Sometimes we need a colossal event to come around to shake us up and make us realise how short life is and that if we don't change things right now while we have the opportunity, we may never be able to do it at all. We always say we'll do it tomorrow, and then tomorrow turns into another day and another day, and eventually its weeks, months even years passed by and we're still sitting here saying we'll get around to it. But every once in a while an opportunity will come around that puts everything else on hold...
I was lucky enough to have one of these opportunities put on a plate and slid across the table to me. A close friend of mine was offering me the opportunity to move to Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, for three months of traveling, fun and freedom. And at first I actually laughed it off and said to myself come on I couldn't do that! I guess everyone is scared of change and that's a pretty big change to consider. It was only as the next week or two played out that the seed of the idea had begun to sprout out and the thoughts I had began to surprise me. I've travelled on my own before sure, but I've never actually lived away from home before and my family are everything to me. I wouldn't see my family or my friends and I'd lose all sense of familiarity. It was that realisation that actually inspired me to start thinking yes in my mind. Sometimes we trap ourselves in our own circumstances; become a little too comfortable. I think life is a lot about stepping outside of your comfort zone to gain as many experiences as possible, which I think is why I love to travel so much. Stepping outside of normality and throwing yourself into whatever life will throw at you. And though I may not always share my travel stories and experiences they are all part of the foundations of the person I am today.
Sometimes as well you'll go through some challenges that will change your perspectives of things in your life. Sometimes realising how easy it is to lose something can make you appreciate the things you do have all the more. You can become stronger than ever when you can gain appreciation; realise that family is family, they will always be there. I am also safe in the knowledge that I have some incredible friends in my life and a test of time is simply a test on how real that friendship is. Friends and family were not the reason stopping me and when I realised that I was far nearer to saying yes than before. Then there was the matter of work, I was in a job I was very unhappy in recently and leaving couldn't have come at a better time. It was beginning to drain me of my passion for my life so this opportunity was absolutely ideal.
The thought of it scared and enthralled me. Which is why I said yes and am here writing this very post in a lil' café in Prague near our apartment. Because I think fear is the counterpart to excitement and if you don't take a risk you will never get anywhere. My life had become a mundane routine with only a splash of excitement here and there and I needed more. The people close to me knew I needed more. This opportunity is three months of excitement and I know that I need it. I plan to take these three months to explore, travel and get back to being the true wanderer that I am again. I've been here nearly a week already but I had already settled in by the time my first day had hit sunset. It amazes me now how I don't get that anxiety of being in a new and foreign place anymore when I first arrive. I'm simply comfortable but in an entirely different way than the comfort at home. Because these three months are an opportunity to challenge myself. To write, to get to know myself even more but most of all just make the most of it. Because if there's going to be one summer in my life where I'm as free and excited as this, it is going to be this one. And one of my number one rules this summer which started when I agreed to come here, was to just keep on saying yes.
Put quite simply, 2014 was simply the best year of my life... So far.
What makes it even more amazing is that I proactively ensured that it was going to be. Through both my actions and a particular helping hand from fate, I'm in a position in my life now where if you would have told me a year ago how it would be, I would never have believed it. But that's the thing about life, you can't plan it out no matter how much you'd like to because you never know what might happen. Whether it be something catastrophic or something incredible, its the unexpected things that make life the surprise that it is. Can you imagine knowing what the next 50 years of your life will entail..? No because that wouldn't be living. I think to really live life, you have to embrace the fact that things are out of your control. Just like you can't control the weather; you can't control the actions of others or control time which has such a significance in our lives. Once you come to this realisation, life gets easier somehow, because you accept that what is meant to be will be.
I'll be honest, I've never been a particularly laid back person. Whether I put that down to the previous pressures of Education, or my family who aren't the calmest people in the world, I don't know. I used to overthink everything, for no apparent reason and then I went traveling in April and my entire life changed. Because I didn't care. I didn't pre plan how to get to my hotels from the train stations, I didn't pre plan what I wanted to do in each place I visited, nor did I do much research into anywhere I went either and you know what... I've never enjoyed life so damn much. I let my legs walk where they wanted to, I ate whatever I fancied without any consequences, I spoke to every person I had the opportunity to speak to,and as a result, met some of the most life changing people, even for simply the briefest of conversations. Because when you travel you're expanding your mind to so much more. Varied cultures, religions, tastes, people, languages, the list is endless. But the one thing you become most knowledgeable about.. is yourself.
The person writing this now is a complete transformation from the shy, lost girl I was a year ago. Because back then I didn't know myself. I didn't know who I was, and yet now I feel so comfortable to be me. I walk around with a freedom and never feel ashamed to be alone. I've said many times on my blog posts I'm solitudes' number one fan, and I'm just so used to it now. I spend a lot of time by myself, and some people probably feel sorry for me for that but I never see it as a bad thing. I actually love it for many reasons, mainly however, it helps me to appreciate when I do spend time with loved ones. When your younger and at school and college you see friends every day not thinking anything about it, and I realise now how much we take that for granted. I'm in a long distance relationship too, so naturally I don't see him a huge amount either but I don't take any of it for granted anymore. Every moment I spend with the people close to me now, has a much more monumental meaning and I simply make the most of every opportunity together now.
However back to topic! 2014 was the best. With its incredible, life changing moments maybe even slightly outweighing the negative ones. I read a book recently and one of the main parts I remember from it was this... "Once you learn to love yourself, amazing things will suddenly start to happen to you. such wonderful things, that you will start to describe them as magic".
That's what happened to me. I went traveling, found myself, began to love myself and then fate stepped in and started a domino effect of positive things happening all in concession of each other. As soon as I got home, I was offered a job. Okay so it didn't turn out great in the long run but it was another experience to add to the list and was pretty ideal when I first started, and a mixture of other things happened too. I know now I just need to have fun. Be less serious, don't over think things and let things happen as they're meant to. I can't predict where I'll be in my life in 6 weeks time, let alone 6 months or 6 years so why worry about it?!
2014 was the best year of my life for meeting people. So many incredible people came into my life, and I'm lucky enough that a large amount of them have stuck around. I started a new job 4 months ago now, and I love it. Okay so it's another coffee shop job but it's so different from any place I've worked before. I have some amazing friends from there already and my social life and my confidence are only on the up at the moment. And when it comes to traveling, and seeing the world, I already have plans for the next 2 months. Going away for a few days to Portugal in only 2 weeks time, and then a surprise trip away where I won't find out where we're going till the day. I hate wishing time away but there really is so much to be excited for. And if I'm not excited about living life, well, it would be pretty darn boring to say the least.
So maybe 2015 won't top 2014, or maybe it will. But I'm going to try my hardest to make it a good one...
So I moved to Prague for the summer as you may or may not know. And in all of that time I have become the person I was always meant to be; my happiest self. The thing is, happiness and freedom come hand in hand together, and the key to both of those things is letting go. Sure we all have baggage, we wouldn't be who we are now without a few suitcases of troubles dragging behind us but its learning to brush off the dust, open them up and free them from you, rather than carrying them and letting the weight of them drag you down. But I learnt this summer that perspective is everything too. Looking back on things that happened in the past is all part of growing, but how you are viewing them is all that matters. To be blunt... Shit happens. The sooner you accept that the sooner you can learn to let go of it. Everything happens for a reason and if you open your mind enough, life will reward you with new hellos and new experiences that will become the life you know now. 
So I am leaving Prague in only a week and a half and it's going to be one of the hardest things I will ever have to do in my life. I am settled here, I'm happy and I'm at home. The people I've met have become part of my everyday life, the freedom of having my own apartment with my best friends; the ability to travel where and whenever I can, and of course best of all... the ridiculously cheap price of beer! All of these things I am giving up to leave when it's the last thing I want to do. Why don't I just stay then some would ask? But sometimes life doesn't work in our favour and no matter how much we want something we cant always just get it. We have to work for it. So my temporary plan at the moment... come home and sort my life out. To be exact, I have the goal of living abroad again by the start of the year. I hope that by the end of January, I will be settled in either Prague or Berlin au pairing, because they are my favourite cities in the world and why not?! My family and friends mean the absolute world to me, but England doesn't. My heart belongs elsewhere now and I learnt once I started traveling that I could never feel truly at home again, because I have an adventurous heart that belongs to new experiences, and the people I have met along the way. Besides, when it comes to family and friends, distance is irrelevant when people are that important.
Okay so I might just be talking myself into believing this, but I need to see this big step of leaving as a positive thing. Not see it as everything that I love I am leaving, but rather that I just have something to work my way back to getting again. Use this as my motivation. It's going to be so hard, and it's hard to put into words. I need to appreciate what I've been lucky enough to experience, because right now I'm at my happiest. Nothing lasts forever but I am so so grateful for this opportunity that came my way. I have changed, because my mind-set has changed. I've learnt to live in the moment and it's the greatest and most freeing feeling I've ever felt. That's why I love traveling, and living in an unfamiliar place; you are completely free and you get to meet the most incredible people. It would take so long to list the amount of people I've been lucky enough to meet, like passing ships in the night who I may or may not ever speak to again. That's the price you pay for traveling. Accepting that every hello will either end in a goodbye or a see you soon. And it all just depends on which you choose. I choose not to say goodbye to Prague... But rather see you soon. 
