Motivation

I hate where I live, I have one friend (American!), I haven’t seen my boyfriend in 75 days (which means I haven’t touched a man in 75 days), I have yet to find a job that pays more than £40 a week, I sincerely regret my spontaneous haircut, and the girl who lives next to me slams her door at four in the morning, every morning, and she isn’t Gwen Stefani so I’m not ok with it. Hence: I have absolutely zero motivation whatsoever to do anything productive with my life.

I’ve always been lazy, but I got through life at a normal pace. Now I have no homework assignments and I haven’t written an essay since May, but I somehow have to get one done this week. It’ll get done, but probably last minute. That is what happened in college anyway.

The point is that I am in grad school in London and my parents paid tons of money for this and all I do is watch TV and mope in my bed. Also I spend a lot of money on clothes and makeup and food.

Tonight I walked Max, the sweet little dachshund who is my only source of income at the moment (see the £40 above), through Islington and Pentonville and peeked into people’s homes in the darkness. London overwhelms me with realizations of wealth every day. New York City wealth is nothing compared to this. There are far more people, far more wealthy people, and far more expensive homes here. Seemingly average families live in million pound townhouses ALL OVER THE PLACE. With an Anthropology of Food degree, I probably can’t ever expect to live in a place like that, unless I marry someone wealthy. But this my future, and you never can tell what will happen.

My parents on the other hand will definitely never experience this life. Unless I become a billionaire overnight, it seems to me they will forever be living with very little, just so I can have more. Here is where the guilt sets in.

I am unhappier than I have ever been in my entire life, at a time when I should be doing the best I can to be successful to make all of that worth it. I have no motivation to do so. This is one of those moments where it’s up to be to pick myself up and do things. Actually write a blog post. Read a journal article. Write the paper you decided on your own that you would write this week, even though it isn’t due for weeks. If I just do it, things will be ok.

I think it’s a lack of an obvious future that scares me. My friend who was a computer science major moved to San Francisco, works at Twitter, suddenly has a ton of friends, a job he loves that pays tons of money, and a new girlfriend. That’s just too easy. It’s never been that easy for anyone in my family. Perhaps it’s the Hungarian curse. It’s just that even if I do write this essay, I don’t really know what I’ll do with this degree. London is rejecting me like a cat coughing up hairballs, over and over again they are there, but they are never wanted. It seems I have no viable skills for the job market, and surely this degree won’t get me closer. What on earth will I do.

As I listen to the obnoxious cackling of the girl who lives two doors down from me in this lifeless, friendless pod, I’m realizing this is going on significantly too long, but in all likelihood no one reads it anyway and by posting I only make myself feel productive, even though it’s 10:00pm and I haven’t done a single thing I should have today. I’ve really got to get out of this city.

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When In A Long Distance Relationship

Things that happen:

• you eat a lot of garlic
• your back scratcher lives next to your bed
• your “other body part” “scratcher” also lives next to your bed
• multiple communication programs live on your laptop home bar for fear of disconnection
• wistful eye contact with attractive men in bars, somehow more often than when you were single

 

Things that don’t happen:

• any form of shaving

Roommates

In Spring of 2012 I studied abroad in London, and lived in an international dorm situation that honestly really sucked. When I found out I was coming back for a year, I decided I wanted to live in a house or an apartment, and so didn’t apply for the postgraduate dorms offered by my school. Halfway through the summer I had a meltdown about making friends and changed my mind, but it was too late. So I’ve ended up living in a student apartment a little bit further from central London, with seven roommates.

I was totally excited about this, thinking I would automatically be surrounded by seven people of a similar age, looking to make friends. Nope. I basically live alone, except that I share a kitchen with seven messy ghosts.

My roommates and I all go to different schools in London, which again I thought would be interesting, but has turned out to mean that they all have friends at their own schools and the only signs that they exist are slamming doors and dirty dishes. I have met a few of them in passing, and they seem quite nice, but not interested in developing any sort of friendship with anyone they live with (what a strange concept!).

Just as I finished that last sentence, someone knocked on my door for the first time ever. I was SO EXCITED and jumped out of bed to answer the door, outfitted in my traditional uniform consisting of:

no makeup
giant university t-shirt
no bra
pajama shorts covered in rainbow cats
hairy legs

Nothing to stop me making a new friend!

It was a maintenance man. Who was here by accident.

What is wrong with this place?

When does small talk over evening cooking become friendship? I am proudly able to say that I have been friendlier and more open than usual since I’ve been here, trying my best to make friends. But I guess everybody already has friends?

So the roommate method isn’t going to work. No worries, I have my little cocoon of food posters, kitten pillows, and candles. Never mind that the storage system is spread around the room so much that I basically live in a giant closet. That’s actually kind of nice.

No matter that my one friend I have met so far who happens to also be American but also gorgeous keeps getting asked out left and right and will surely have friends in a jiffy. I always have my cocoon! Tomorrow I have my first class focused specifically to my graduate program, and ideally these people will be friendly and interested in getting a drink after class…WHAT IF THEY AREN’T? Cocoon.

Stay cozy.

 Cozy.

 Cozy and delicious.

Lonely At Last

When people embark on great journeys alone, they are seen as brave, strong, exciting souls. Graduate school in London you say? How exciting! All the new friends you will meet! The adventures you will have!

So far, not so much. Sometimes you are not brave, strong, or exciting, and you spend your first three weeks cowering in your room on the internet. Not everyone is adventurous and confident and spirited, like a dreadlocked Australian on her gap year in Thailand (no bitterness implied). So you drown your sorrows in way way way WAY too much shopping, even though you still can’t find a job, and FaceTiming with your boyfriend.

Does this sound like you? It doesn’t sound like anyone else I’ve ever met, heard of, or read about online. Everyone else seems to trip over adventures and friends around every corner. It sounds like me. Little old me, with a perpetual fear of being alone, instantly hurdled into a state of depression on the first day of summer vacation when all my friends were at summer camp. For someone who is as annoyed by most of humanity as I am, I have had a shockingly hard time accepting loneliness in my life.

Learning to be alone is seen as such a strong suit in people, people like those dreadlocked Australians on their gap years who you’ll find on any given night staying in a hostel alone in Bangkok or Tel Aviv or Cairo. I’ve always said I wanted to do these things, but who does them alone? HA! What if I hate being alone? Am I a weak person? I’m starting to realize I probably am. Don’t get me wrong, I love being alone when it’s my choice, and there are friends to turn down. But shouldn’t I be able to be a happy person even when life is not so self-affirming?

So here I sit and vow to make a change. I wait eagerly for the day that I can contentedly say that I did nothing but be with myself all day. I have been ashamedly able to say this many a time, but to be fully secure in this life experience is nothing I have ever felt before. Once, I spent a day exploring Edinburgh all by myself, and it was amazing. I saw everything I wanted to see in my own way and had a grand ball of a time. But I still feel bad about the fact that I had no one to share it with, like there is something wrong with me because of it. Sharing travels is amazing, but enjoying them on your own has to be just as valuable.

I seek to find the value in loneliness and point it out to myself. Perhaps sharing my travels with the two people who will find this blog in the midst of late night breakdowns will satisfy me somewhat, at least until I can finally make friends in my new city. (See! So what if I don’t? I can still have a great year by myself! Right?) Note to self: in learning to be lonely, learning to cease all self-doubt is seemingly crucial.

Well, here I go…