If you're not happy, make a change

Today I had one of the best conversations of my life. (I love keeping track of them. Remember this?) This afternoon I met up with a friend who’s been away in Europe for the past six weeks or so, so we had a lot of catching up to do. In spite of being someone I met randomly through basketball not even that long ago, she’s one of the few people that I immediately felt 100% relaxed and confident to open up to. I feel a strong connection to her even though I realise I only know her on a superficial level - or better, I know one part of her very well, but I don’t really know much about other aspects of her life or her past before New Zealand. Anyway. She’s been going through some tough times recently, and this is what we talk about the most. Since I’m also not having the best of times, it’s great to have someone who totally gets me to share my troubles with. Although the origin of our distress is not the same, we can still relate to each other in terms of stress, frustration, and how we deal with them.

What I love about my friend is how she processes things. I also constantly overanalyse myself, but she does it in a more methodical, structured way. When she’s dealing with a problem that seems overwhelming at first, she deconstructs it in smaller parts and copes with each of them individually, overcoming them one by one. (For the records, I have no idea if this is actually how her mind works, this is just what I get from our conversations.) But this is super helpful for me as well, as I’m learning to apply the same strategy to my own problems, which now seem so much more manageable and less insurmountable. Every time I’m with her, I’m learning something new about myself. Also, she’s made me a much better listener. I hope I’m somehow helping her too.

Today I told her about my unstable work situation and how stressed I’ve been feeling. In return, she shared some of her recent development on getting over a breakup (by the way, I’m SO proud of her for being so strong and getting to where she is now). Over our flat whites, we came to the conclusion that life is always going to be crappy. There is always going to be something wrong with it, something we don’t like, something we want to fix – and we are always going to look at other people’s lives and think, I wish I had that. But guess what? They are probably thinking the same about our life. Nobody’s life is perfect, and shit is always going to happen. What we can do is find a way to be ok with it no matter what.

My life hasn’t exactly been a stroll in the park since moving here. Sure, I’ve been enjoying the crap out of it for the most part, but there have been times of discomfort and frustration (especially lately). Not having a stable job is being really difficult for me to handle. Before leaving for New Zealand, Giac and I both knew that it would have been easier for him to find a job than for me, but one thing is to know it, another is to experience it. I’m not gonna lie, I’m struggling with this worse than I’d expected. And because of how I am, the moment something goes slightly wrong, I immediately enlarge it to the extreme, until everything is wrong and I hate my life.

And my automatic reaction has been to blame it on New Zealand (see: my latest post. Lesson learned: never publish a blog post when you’re grumpy). But this has nothing to do with New Zealand. I had problems in London too. I had problems in Italy, in Edinburgh – I had different problems, but I still had them in every single place I’ve lived. So I’m taking my friend’s piece of advice and detach my problems from this place, and delve into my own self instead. I’m focusing on the positives, on all the good things I have, on what I’ve achieved rather than on what I’m lacking. I freaking love this country for so many reasons, which outweigh the reasons why I dislike it by far, and the last thing I want is to start associating New Zealand to bad, negative memories, to the point where I will start counting the days until I can leave. I know I will one day move somewhere else, but I want it to be because I've got to a point where I'm satisfied with my experience here, and not beacuse I am bloody miserable. And as Giac says, we are in a position where the moment we are not happy we can leave, like, tomorrow. That’s quite a privilege. We can’t really complain about anything. (In fact, this post is becoming the epitome of what I hate: First World white girls whining about First World white girls’ problems). So I’ll cut it short and conclude by saying that I’m working on finding a safe space within myself where I can be ok no matter what.

(Also, I’m glad I got to write something to push my latest post further down the timeline as I’m applying for writing jobs and I can’t link my blog for reference if the first thing my potential employers are gonna see is a post where I say the world fuck fourteen times.)