Hello 2015

So 2014 has left us at last and I have bid it a very fond farewell. I didn’t make any new year’s resolutions, other than to live 2015 doing what it took most of 2014 to realise was important to me.

Last year was a year of challenges for me. I dealt with bad friends and bad relationships. I realised that once imperfect ones had finally matured into something fantastic. I overcame my relapse into depression and finished up with counselling for the time being. I put myself outside my comfort zone for the first time in a long time and in doing so took my biggest step towards taking control of my own life.

Last summer au pairing in Spain was my dry run for moving away from home. I spent two months living with a family, absorbing a culture, improving my language and making friends I hope to see again soon. In many ways a few months away from all the usual faces, places and dramas was good preparation for moving, Moscow was an entirely different kind of adventure.

I never thought anywhere but Ireland would feel like home for me, but my first term in Moscow State University changed my perspective not just on what home was, but who I was. I have fashioned myself a little family here, I have decorated my tiny apartment into a room fit for me and I have gained insights into more languages, cultures and people than I initially could have imagined.

Because this post doesn’t have a particular direction, I don’t want to make it too long, I could write reams about the newness of arrival, my worlds colliding when my parents came over to visit, or even the alien feeling of flying to Dublin and feeling like my house wasn’t the home I once felt it to be. Now I don’t mean to say that it wasn’t as welcoming as it always has been, only that home doesn’t feel like a place anymore, but rather the feeling that I can make my way anywhere, that happiness, comfort and love don’t live in only one location. Most importantly, I found that by leaving the only place I thought I had these things, I reminded myself that they live inside of me as much as they do in my friends, family and surroundings.

I may be sitting on a half broken soviet bed frame in an apartment the size of my kitchen in Dublin and hoping the snow outside won’t get in through my dodgy window frame, but I never felt more at home. I know that my fantastic family will wait for me, and that my great friends will have even more to share with me after not seeing me for a year. I know that, for the time being, I have a fabulous roommate and future roommate, an international troupe of new friends to learn from and one boy in particular who will always remind me that even without all of the great people around me, I would be enough all by myself.
2014, you were a bitch of a mistress but you taught me a lot and I will be forever grateful for the most important person you brought back into my life – myself.  I was lost for a little while, but running away to a strange place, all alone and with no idea what to expect, turned out to be how I found my way. I am full of excitement for what my next year has in store for me, and I hope a part of it will be getting back into writing because I love it, not just because I need a way to get out all my negative feelings. Thanks to those of you who stuck with me during a particularly bleak period in this blog’s outlook – I’ll try not to get into that hole again.

Belated Happy 2015!