Day 3: Reflections of a week, and of a year.

Today I ache all over, this is undeniably a day of rest for me! Nixon is back to work now for the rest of the week, so this gives me a little time to relax, reflect and explore a little. Today about the only physical things I have managed to achieve are: Getting out of bed, walking around a bit, going to a shop to get some lunch and accidentally stealing some macarons as they forgot to scan them (I didn’t realise until I got home) and read a little; but this is the first day I have really been left alone in this strange new place, and I can feel it starting to set in. I may be staying in what could practically be called an artistic palace (I mean, it’s so big, I have my own wing and a tower to this place…kinda), but this only adds to how lonely it can be here.

My mum and nan are coming out in two days time, and even though it has only been two days since I left, I feel like I need that reassurance that I have made the right move. I try and sort out some emails for university here and try to arrange some meetings with the relevant people before I start in just over 2 weeks time, so that I can make sure I am prepared, and I try to occupy my time with silly things on the internet. I realise I should be studying French, but when you are faced with studying the one thing which is alienating you from your former life, it makes it that much harder not to resent it; but I realise that my former life wasn’t perfect either, and actually by being here, I escape a lot from which I would rather avoid from home.

Today is the 1 year anniversary of the death of my father, and I still don’t know how to feel. The fact that his case isn’t even closed with the court and the bank means I still feel like I am mourning, yet I haven’t had the time to mourn…it’s exhausting. It is peculiar how distance, both physically and metaphorically creates a space in which we decipher the inner workings of our emotions and how this, in turn, heals us; when all we really crave is the shared stability of another human being. I suppose that this is what death is for us: the space, the distance in which we validate our own existence.