sun and rain

Thinking about:

When this rain will stop, and when the sun will come out. Whether the red wine will come out of my favourite white jeans. Why I remain perpetually single. Why some of my best friends live so far away. About friends who take you to art galleries when you're sad. About whether the media are scaremongering, and what is true. About the race I have to run despite not running in months. About the chaos of this term. 

Its a very wet Thursday morning. I've got my coffee and my cereal, but something doesn't feel quite right. This has been the strangest week, and the uncertainty is set to continue. On Monday, I was supposed to be going to Jordan with some of my best friends, to marvel at all the things I've learned about this term, and laugh until I cry, to debate, to explore. But now I might be going home, I might not. I might be working, I might not. Trinity term might not even be happening.

But I'm just trying to think in the moment, and in the opportunity. And to learn to exist in the emptiness and the unfamiliarity. 

The sun has come out, I really hope it stays like this. 

Yesterday, after a walk in the meadows, I treated myself to two new books. 

I have had Girl, Woman, Other on my to-read for months, ever since my tutor recommended it, and I finally caved after it came out in paperback. It follows the lives of 12 characters in the UK throughout the last 100 years, and won the Booker in 2019. I will report back. 

Late in the Day was an impulse purchase based entirely on the cover, but it sounds intriguing. Its about 'friendship, loss and jealousy'. The blurb does that odd thing where it seems to give away the crux of the plot (i.e. a friend dies), but I'm sure there is far more to it. I have been thinking about friendship a lot recently, mostly that it feels so momentarily intense but is often so transient. My best and most indispensable friends now might not be by my side in 20 years. So it feels sort of pertinent. 

I'm also currently reading Atonement. I read a rogue McEwan over the Christmas vac and really enjoyed his writing style, so felt it necessary to read his most seminal. I'm enjoying it so far, although I feel I haven't properly sat down and allowed myself to become immersed. 

What else? 

The past 8 weeks have included some of my most saddest and hardest moments, and some of my most happiest. Last week my mood was untouchably happy. Friday was the most peaceful and calm day. I was hungover but happy, it was sunny, I walked along my favourite street, had a challenging tutorial, had a chai latte and a walk with a good friend, played netball and went home. All good things and I remember feeling so content. This week was harder. Being at home increasingly makes me feel on edge and anxious and sort of threw me, and our lack of holiday is making me feel a bit empty. But things will get better and will get more certain and this will pass.

And now its Sunday. Tomorrow I am going home, not to Jordan. It's been an unsettled but beautiful few days of laughter and coffee and walks. Life is disorienting and scary but the thing that makes me most scared is not returning here in 6 weeks. This is my favourite place in the world, and these are my favourite people, and it would break me to not come back. But we thrive and we survive, take day by day, feel blessed at our privilege, and distance ourselves from the news. 

love nd hope to u all x x