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I've got no reason, but that I must

"My young heart's in tatters and I'm sure
that it will be a long time healing"


Life gets mightily confusing sometimes.

I am okay. In fact I'm more than okay. I am happy and so grateful for my life, past and present. But I am also hurting. There is a pain in my heart, a sorrow that can catch me unaware on an otherwise perfectly normal day. Other thoughts crowd me too. Thoughts of home. I daydream about moving back to Bristol, of being near my family and reconnecting with old friends.

Living here is hard work. Learning about cultural differences is fascinating but it is also exhausting. I always have to assume that my actions and reactions are not perceived by those around me in the usual way and that how I perceive the actions and reactions of others will never be accurate. How can we form meaningful relationships with each other if we cannot understand each other? And yet somehow it is possible...

After only 14 weeks here I'm sure these feelings are natural.

As I write this I can hear the chitter-chatter of children at lunch, the rain slapping the ground outside, and the distant drone of the call to prayer. This place is so alive with sound. Colour too. I passed a cemetery the other day and it was such a beautiful sight - crosses and headstones in pastel purples, little-miss-piggy-pinks, baby blues and (if you will excuse me) graveyard green. Not a spooky place in the slightest and it was so refreshing to me, to see a cemetery so visually alive.

In conclusion, life is confusing and painful and beautiful. It must also be confusing for mice, since last night a (massive) one mistook my bedroom for a fun place to mouse around in...

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