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My First Month in New York...

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Hello there, remember me? I’m that girl who told you I was moving to New York and then was never heard of again…

In actuality I did move to New York. About a month ago, and while I decided to take a break from writing about it for the first few weeks, I’m back. And I have a lot to say. Well, not that much to say. But quite a lot more to say than I would have about a month where all I did was watch The Good Wife and bake burger shaped cupcakes.

I have a bad habit of getting overly hopeful about the future. The running dialogue in my head normally goes ‘Well yes, things are bad now, but in a month/week/year/century they’re going to be amazing and everything’s going to be perfect and rainbows and unicorns’. And I was definitely thinking that way a before I came to New York. I was trying to prepare myself but I could only really imagine two situations. One where I was the happiest, most sane, put together, popular person who had ever stepped foot in Washington Square Park, and one where I was a compete wreck, cried every day and came home after a week. I just couldn’t imagine a middle ground. I didn’t know what that would look like.

The entire last month has been about finding some way to realize (spelt with a Z because I’m officially an American now) that my life is never going to be as perfect as I dreamt it would be. But it also doesn’t have to be as bad as it used to be. I’m not the perfectly groomed, perfectly stable person of my dreams but I’m also not the 17 year old girl hiding under the covers too afraid to leave her bedroom. I’m somewhere in the middle, like Texas, or a medium rare steak, and it’s been a big job trying to re-wire my brain into not panicking every time something goes wrong. There have definitely been bad bits, but there have also been bits that have been better than I could ever have imagined, and times when I’ve been happier than I ever could have been before. And finding a way to accept that I can feel both happy and sad together has been a complicated thing to do.

Now that I’m settled I’m going to start blogging more, mostly because it turns out you have a lot of free time at university and there’s only so much Gossip Girl a girl can watch (okay, that’s a lie, I can watch an infinite amount of Gossip Girl) but also because I love this blog, and everyone who reads it.

So I will be back, with more details about the good things, and the bad things, and the things in between. But for now I will leave you with two things to ponder on: bed bugs, and bunk beds. Yes, that’s right, you’re eyes do not deceive you, bed bugs (the explanation behind the picture of my leg above)… and BUNK BEDS….

I hope you’re having a lovely day.

Scarlett.