Anyone got some sparkly red shoes?

Firstly, my apologies to those who are expecting either a post about Tirgu Mures or my eventful journey from there to Piatra Neamt, where I'm currently located. They will appear here soon (keep your eyes peeled for the journey one, it's going to be a corker!), but one of the things that I want to be on this blog is authentic and honest. We hear so often that social media is so unbalanced because we only get to see the good bits of people's lives and I've been as guilty as the next person of perpetuating this. I see how this affects people around me and it concerns me and so as I've said before, this blog isn't about me only giving you the good bits. I obviously know a lot of the people who have subscribed to my blog, and according to the stats, it's had over 1300 views so I know it's being looked at! In my life pre-Andreagoesexploringagain, the things I discuss here wouldn't necessarily come up in the conversations I would have with some of the known subscribers. The thing about the blog though is that I don't know who's reading it, despite them being subscribed, and so it somehow makes it easier to share some of this stuff and to be honest about what I'm experiencing.

So what is it that I need to be honest about? It's no huge declaration, just that today I have experienced full-blown homesickness for the first time on this trip. I'm not talking about the feeling a bit low and wanting familiar stuff that I had early on. I'm talking about the bone-crushing, wanting to burst into tears, crawl into a ball, click my heels together a la Dorothy, all-encompassing feeling of wanting to be back home. There's no obvious reason for why, it's massively abated now and was triggered by the most ludicrous thing and so in case you were starting to, please don't be concerned. I'm OK, I promise. 

I woke up today to the most beautiful (bloody cold but sunny) day and decided not to have breakfast in the hotel but walk into town to eat. That was the start really, as I couldn't find anywhere I fancied and then I lost confidence to walk into somewhere unknown on my own (this happens occasionally) and so by the time I'd plucked up the courage to go into a cafe and then had the worst cappuccino of my life I wasn't feeling great. I'm pretty certain, however, that the security guard at Carrefour who told me I couldn't go into the store with my rucksack on my back rather than in one of their bags (not overly sure how this would stop me shoplifting if that had been my intention - I wear travel trousers which have lots of pockets!) had no idea of the effect her words would have on me as when I just decided not to go into the shop and turned to walk away, that's when it hit me. It kind of takes your breath away and all I could think was that I desperately wanted to go home.

I'm an incredibly self-sufficient person. Too self-sufficient really. It mainly comes from being bullied for most of my school life, where my particular punishment was to have the class stop speaking to me and so I developed the ability to get by on my own at an early age, but it has been further consolidated by some poor life choices. It's impacted my whole life, not always negatively but did eventually lead me to going for CBT earlier this year in order to deal with it, but that's a whole different blog post! Being able to cope on my own, I quickly realised in this trip with the lack of hostels and opportunity for conversations was going to be of great benefit. But it's funny, it's being away that has made me realise how much people care for me back home, and that actually the self-sufficiency I have is also intrinsically linked with the support and love I have from friends and family. It's taken being away for me to realise this. This was a huge lightbulb moment and feeds quite significantly into some of my personal development goals. 

So dealing with it. I could of course just get on a plane back home. But that would be daft and so what I actually did was bought some colouring pencils and a pad of paper. There are some things that I miss terribly from my regular life, like my brown, grey and blue shoes or my black Hobbs dress that I dream about wearing again. Another is all the crafting that I did. Creative hobbies have long been a major part of my life, I had my sewing machine at 17 and my passion for dressmaking is undimmed more than 25 years later. I've been able to knit and cross-stitch for as long as I can remember. In recent years I started making cards and in the last few years have also tried my hand at crocheting (a book on micro-macrame I saw in a bookshop earlier in my trip has sparked my next crafting intentions) and as I'd mentioned to my parents a week or so ago, I was really missing these activities. I very nearly bought some crayons on Saturday thinking these would be lightweight and fulfil this need, but I ummed and ahhed too long and by the time I decided to do it the shop was shut (I'd forgotten they close at 1pm on Saturdays...). And so today I did it and now own Bic Kids Tropicolour crayons, a pencil sharpener and a small art pad. I can't draw to save my life, and there weren't any small colouring books in the shopping centre I was in, but I can doodle with the best of them. So I figured I'd just doodle and colour it in. In effect I'd make my own colouring book. Which is exactly what I did! And it helped me so much.

What also helped was the amazing views from my balcony window. As the sun went behind clouds, the colour of the water in the lake changed constantly and it was so beautiful, it was like a soothing balm. 

And so now, I'm a lot better. One thing I am always conscious of is how fortunate I am to be able to embark on the trip that I am. I have a year off work and I'm getting to travel to some amazing places. But this type of trip isnt like a long holiday. It requires a different mindset, being prepared to not know what you're doing 95% of the time which for me and my personality type whilst exciting, is also incredibly challenging. Don't get me wrong, I knew what I was signing up for when I made the decision to do this and I'm not after sympathy. This is the first really bad day I've had; given I've now been away for 55 days, for me this is also pretty good going! It's true what they say though, a bad day travelling is still better than bad day at work...!