Today is the one year anniversary of my return from Australia and thus the beginning of this blog. Rereading that first post, one can tell how nervous I was about crashing and burning emotionally after what is still the best year of my life (sorry, year that's just happened). I'm glad to report that that didn't really happen: I found I was still crying up til about October, mainly when I was on public transport and certain songs came on, but even then, I never fell into actual depression. As previously stated, most of this is due to my mother, who even remembered that today was my returniversary, despite her inability to remember anything at all. We spoke on the phone, and she checked that I was doing OK.
And I am, I'm happy to report; although, I must confess I still see doppelgangers of lots of my Australian mates when out and about. There's a Charlotte look-a-like who lives in or around Blackford and always elicits stares of uncontained amazement whenever I see her (I had to restrain myself from poking her the first time we crossed paths). I think about Australia alike, and probably talk about it more, due to my propensity for speaking without actually engaging my brain; sometimes people ask me about it, or it comes up organically, but often I'll just shoe-horn it in like Cinderella's desperate stepsister, not to make myself seem more interesting (well not JUST for that), but also to remind myself that it happened. Because it'd be easy to forget. Not literally, obviously, but to forget the impact that it had on me- to lose the memories of the events and the people and the changes that I underwent. I don't want this to happen. I NEED for this not to happen. This is partly why I'm so happy I kept the other blog- it now functions like a diary, but one with hyperlinks and inbuilt videos. I can just click on the 'October 2012' section and see what I was doing at that time: working a job I hate, complaining about the heat, critiquing films...what's actually changed?
I was going to detail what's changed in the past year here, but honestly you can read the other posts in this blog if you want to know that. I'm not going to pretend that the year since I came back has been a complete bust or a complete triumph- as with most years, it's been mixed-to-very-positive (incidentally, I consider my year in Melbourne an almost-untainted triumph). But I think that this year was always going to pale in comparison to its predecessor, so I'm glad I can look on it with even this amount of enthusiasm. It was hard not to feel like this year was a bit of a step backward, to be honest, since I mostly resumed habits from first and second years, except with fewer people that I knew here; like a greatest hits tour after some of the members of the band have died. Still, those habits weren't entirely unenjoyable, so I don't have too much to complain about.
When I first came back, I was on a real I-must-go-back-as-soon-as-possible kick, but now that the emotions have had time to simmer, I see that really that's probably not a good idea. Or, at least, going back to Australia is no better an idea than going anywhere else exotic: none of my friends are in the same place as when I left them, and probably aren't all that close to one another geographically anymore either. Yarra, where most of my memories are based, probably wouldn't allow me on the grounds for fear I was an escaped inmate from the asylum next door (yes, that was actually a thing). I miss everyone so much, but I wouldn't be able to see them all anyway, they're so disparate now- Jason's back in the US, Will's in Canada, I think Daryl's returned to Malaysia and evidently Charlotte's moved in just down the road. I can't go back to Melbourne in July 2012 and resume my life, and I just have to accept that.
Back when I started writing this blog, I would randomly insert mentions of my friends back in Australia, just so that they would know I was thinking about them. Now, I find this practice kind of disingenuous, and I'm hoping my friends across the world will take it as read that I think about them a great deal (this also goes for my Edinburgh friends who've left recently). I won't forget my year abroad for as long as I can ensure that I don't; it improved me as a person, allowed me some incomparable life experiences and was just a whole load of fun.
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