expat life – Lessons I learned after I turned 30

Thursday afternoon…

I’m ready. I put my Spotify on and After all comes up first… ‘tou tou tou tou tou tou...After all I really love you‘. I smile. I loved this song since the first moment I heard it, when a friend sent it to me a while ago. It never fails to cheer me up.

I packed all I need and waiting for the little one to pick me up. First stop, her Italian oral exam. Somehow half an hour later I find myself sitting with her and her course mate in the classroom. Stefano invited me in, I smiled and nodded. What a lovely man. Funky yellow trousers, cool glasses, a sweet, polite voice.

I’m surprised how much Italian I remember. I’m so proud of my little sis and her classmate. They did brilliantly.

I chat to a couple of her classmates afterwards, nervously waiting outside. I wish I could tell them that none of this really matters… Enjoy your life little ones and don’t worry about exams. But would have I listened if I was told that ten years ago when I was in their shoes?

Now… what should I have for dinner on Tuesday when I arrive back in Southampton late and exhausted? What about moving? What if I don’t find a place and have nowhere to stay, what if the agency messes up me and I have to stay another two months? (Cold sweat…) Stop it! Focus!

Now the exam is over it’s time to head to the theatre for a final rehearsal and the show.

There’s no signal in the theatre and I can’t use my phone. That’s for the best. It can be my worst distraction sometimes…

A few hours later…

Tickets sorted, all ready, it’s showtime!

It all went well minus a couple of hiccups. I feel bad I didn’t recognise the Vice Chancellor straight away. I’ve only seen a photo of him the day before and there was a mess up with the tickets… I didn’t instantly figure it out. But all well.

I’m so proud for my little sister and everyone involved in the musical. None of them is a professional singer or an actor but they put together a brilliant show. Now, let’s help pack, tidy up and go home…

I can’t unlock the car, why can’t I unlock the car?

I knew it! The long beep I’ve heard earlier when we were rushing out of the car was the lights. I told her. She thought it was the door…

Now it’s half past midnight and other than one more person, who didn’t have any equipment to help us start jump the car anyway there’s no one else left at the car park.

After about an hour, we are finally home. A friend came to the rescue and it all ended well. God I’m exhausted…

Friday noon…

I finally got some sleep. I still feel drained but there’s no rest for the wicked.

The little sis and I pop to the shops for some essentials. The guy at the newsagents starts a conversation… Surprised, I stare for a second and then I remember where I am and how people are different here. I smile and make a joke. I’ve adapted again, a couple of days before I’m about to leave…

Friday afternoon…

I’m meeting two of my oldest best friends. We’ve known each other since high school. We haven’t changed much, other than carrying our bruises and scars of the last 18 years, hopeful but more realistic and scared to dream as big…

And… a lovely surprise! A friend I haven’t seen for ten years, a friend I spent endless evenings just driving around town with, nights out and days at the beach as a naive and careless 20 year old. So happy to see him. He looks exactly the same. He talks exactly the same, strikingly honest as always but he as well more mature and pragmatic about life.

Saturday morning…

This is the only time during my short visit the five of us are all together and it’s hilariously chaotic as always. We go for a walk at the beach, still a bit too cold for a swim but perfect for a Saturday stroll and lunch. I can’t stop humming ‘tell me how to be in this world, tell me how to breathe in and feel no hurt’…

I cherish these rare moments, that’s what they are nowadays, rare and they will get rarer the older we get.

It’s funny how as a teen, even a young 20 year old, we dread family time with our parents and our siblings but the older we get, the more we realise the fragility of life and how thing may change at any minute, the more we appreciate the sacrifices they made and still make for us, their selfless love and the only thing they want in return is for us to be happy and spend time with them…

Saturday afternoon…

I finally get to see the only best friend I couldn’t see at Christmas. We sit at a cafe for hours chatting, with a coffee in hand, like we used to back at uni.

A few hours later we are having beers right next to the Faneromeni church with her fiance, his brother and my sister. It feels like a scene from Boyhood… but a few years later, now some 30 year olds who’ve known each other for years, sitting at a bar, just outside one of the oldest churches in Nicosia, having a beer, still troubled and desperate seeking the meaning of life whilst reminiscing… What a beautiful, surreal way to end the day.

Sunday noon…

No matter what you have planned for the day, there is always time for a cup of coffee and almost always the company grows at the last minute.

Sunday afternoon…

After some shopping and… a coffee with friends and sisters it’s time for my godson’s belated birthday. I’m so happy I’ve been to his first birthday last year and now his second. He’s grown so much and every time I see him our bond is getting stronger and stronger…

Pappou Costa and my aunties are here, my cousin’s little angels and her husband and relatives are here. I enjoy every moment, despite the mayhem and the noise, it actually somehow makes it better…

Monday noon…

I’m sitting at the Uni’s cafe with my mum. I’m on my laptop writing a post, the first part of this blog and she is knitting rosaries. It’s quiet, peaceful…It has just rained but the sun is out again. It never stays away for long on this island…

Monday afternoon…

I take the little sister on an educational trip down old Nicosia. I’m surprised how little she knows about the island’s history but I’m glad I’m teaching her what I’ve known for years… Up the Siakolas tower for a panoramic view of the city, one of the few spots you can see over ‘the other side’ without having to show your passport to cross the green line, the only divided capital in the world, down the old town, the Archbishop’s place that was half burned during the coup in 1974, the house of the dragoman Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios who, although working with the Turks, secretly helped his fellow Greek Cypriots in the 1800’s, when the country where under the Ottoman empire…

Tuesday morning…

My throat feels sore… typical. I’m getting a cold just as I’m about to leave. I try not to think about it.

I say goodbye to the family and this little man…

and my sister drops me off at the airport. I think I prefer it to just get dropped off rather than saying goodbye to my sisters and my mum to the gate. Still emotional but makes it easier to leave.

Time to go back, but I feel I needed a few more days… to tackle my overthinking… Remember, one day at a time…

Remember… nothing stays the same and nothing changes…

Remember… you got this…

Namaste

Eleni

Tuesday morning

I just woke up. Where am I? I’ve been having dreams about a friend, the same friend for two or three nights and they never end well, I can’t understand why… what is my brain trying to tell me? I wake up confused.

Two days ago I was on our amazing One Sound show, singing with my colleagues in front of 700 people and the next day knackered having a Sunday coffee with a friend and then watching Beast at Harbour Lights, a film I’m still thinking about.

But now I’m in the summer PJs my mum got me (pink floral Good Vibes written on the top, very fitting), it feels warm, no it feels hot, I must have sweat a lot last night. I remember. I remember my long day of taxi, train, flight. I remember the airport guard looking for a specific guy on my flight but he never showed up, I remember watching Schindler’s List on the plane (why I thought it’d be a good time to do that I don’t know,de-press-ing), my sisters and my mum at the airport…

I’m at home… my other home, my first home…

It always feels weird the first day or two I’m back. No matter how often I may visit, I always get this ‘out of place’ feeling every time. As if I travelled for days and I’m now on another planet, an utterly and completely different life that’s somehow very familiar.

I guess it is. I’m a different person here, but also the same. Does that make sense? I’m not sure it does but I have a feeling that expats will get it.

Every time I come home I remember the person I used to be before I left, how I changed over the years, how I grew up, how living in the UK has changed me, but somehow deep down I’m still the same little girl. Am I a different person here or just a different version of myself?

I guess I subconsciously adapt to the environment, different people, different culture, different weather. Different but familiar… A familiar environment, everything is familiar but not as familiar as it used to be. People here are more open, more affectionate. I forget how they stare, how they start a conversation with a stranger with such ease. And after a day or two I’m more open and ‘more’ of everything myself. The wonders of human nature. How easily we learn and adapt to a different way of living… especially when we lived it before in ‘another life’.

Why am I thinking all of this now? Maybe it’s because I didn’t have any time to think for the last week or two, maybe a walk at the beach and a coffee by the sea with friends will help…

I keep mumbling Bastille’s Pompeii… But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all? And if you close your eyes does it almost feel like you’ve been here before?

Wednesday morning

Marios, the hairdresser remembers me and my friends in primary school. He remembers me playing my guitar… How? Why can’t I remember him? I wonder what my childhood friends are now doing… I later in the week discover that one of them is now a well known chef in Cyprus, Charalambos! I recognised him as soon as I saw him on TV. Last I remember of him was 10 year old us playing outside my grandma’s house. I have a picture of us on the school nativity play, he was Joseph and I was Holy Mary…

Later in the day…

I just got a message and a rainy snap from a friend back home. I sent him a snap of me in my summer attire. I finally escaped the longest winter, my longest winter in the UK. I smile… I’ve been chatting to two of my friends back… home all week. I don’t mind, I actually prefer it. I somehow don’t want to forget my ‘other’ life. It’s part of me.

I meet my little sister’s friends, her co-stars in the musical they’ve been working hard on for the last six months. I’ve heard so much about them and I can now put together faces and names. Although we just met they welcome me with such love and affection I find it moving and can’t stop smiling. They’ve heard a lot about me from my little sis and couldn’t wait for me to visit, and I’ve heard a lot about them, it feels as if we’ve already known each other for while. One of them wants to speak in English, he likes my ‘British’ accent. I giggle to myself. As much as I can try, I can never completely escape my ‘British’ self.

Later in the same day…

The three of us, again, like back in the day, in our uni years, having a drink and a cigarette, chatting, serious, deep conversations and bursting into hysterical laughs every now and then. No one would have ever guessed the turns, the ups and downs, the crazy, surreal almost things, people, events life threw at us. How we changed but we are somehow still the same.

Thursday morning

I can’t get out of bed. I’m exhausted. Ran out of energy. Completely. But I know today will be a long day. It’s the day of the show. That’s why I came home now and not summertime. I need to focus on that.

And stop thinking about what I’ll do when I’m back, decisions I need to make, what to focus on, what I can do to help the family here in case they need to move out in the near future. The condition of the flat is getting worse… the government is doing nothing. Maybe I can move in with a flatmate again so I can save and help my parents if needed? Although I hate it. Although I will worry whether they paid the bills, although I love and miss living on my own so much it hurts.

‘Do what is best for you. You are in your thirties, you work hard, you deserve to enjoy life, have your own place again. I’m sure everything will work out fine for us’ my mum said. I was about to cry but I didn’t. I knew that will set them off. I’m so blessed to have such an amazing pair for parents. They always put our happiness first. No matter what.

I feel guilt. I feel torn. What should I do? How do you make a decision like this? How do you make any important decision?

One of the reasons I need to go home every now and then (other than the sunshine) is to remember who I am, how much I’m loved, escape my troubles back home in the UK, reset and go back with a fresh mindset. But this time I find myself thinking of all the things I need to sort out most of the time. I can’t let it consume me…

A lyric from Vincent keeps playing in my mind…

Now I understand what you tried to say to me… how you suffered for your sanity…

Get ready, quickly, you only have an hour… Focus on the musical, focus on today, focus on the now. Please…

Eleni

Tag: expat life

Nothing stays the same and nothing changes… (part 2)

Nothing stays the same and nothing changes… (part 1)