flailing about

I consider myself an expert in ‘starting things’. Check me out starting this blog!! This is the third blog I have started so you are in very safe hands.

I also just happen to be starting a new life right now….starting over, starting again… which I also have a lot of experience in. The current ‘box’ that I am trying to squeeze my life into is ‘proper adult, living in Hamburg, Germany, who earns enough to live on and start a family from doing things I enjoy like writing, teaching Yoga, teaching dance…’ The problem is, is that my flailing limbs tend to destroy boxes rather quickly. I have a crisis and run away.

I find ‘starting over’ very easy. After a few months, I generally manage to convince myself that there is another box that would really fit me much better and this box was always actually quite ugly. So my question isn’t ‘How do i start again?’ but ‘how do I not run away?’

How to Start Again

Here are my top tips for starting again, because I know some people find that hard…

Caveat: this is written from the perspective of an extremely privileged white woman who has only ever been exposed to ‘first world problems’.

• Have something to run away from. A random example… Move to Argentina not knowing anyone there. You don’t speak a word of Spanish. Your lifelong dream of being a contemporary dancer is crumbling. You can’t handle auditions…or pretentious people…and have terrible imposter syndrome. Other good things to run away from include: controlling mothers, drunken husbands, annoying friends etc.
• Fully commit to the idea that ‘the grass is always greener’. Another random example… running away from Argentina to Germany because it’s too chaotic then running away from Germany to the UK because everything is too ‘ordered’ then spending your whole time in the UK dreaming about living in Colombia because ‘it’s easier to feel useful there’… There is one case in which for me, the grass really is always greener and that’s actual grass…and other green things. I feel better in nature and feel validated by research…so there.
• Be clingy If you meet someone who seems like ‘your people’, hold on for dear life, they will lead you to others! If you get chatting and as a polite way to end the conversation, they say ‘we should meet up some time’, don’t accept the brush off, ask them ‘when?’
• Find a good cafe. There’s nothing quite like being recognized in a local cafe or pub to help you feel like you belong. In Buenos Aires, during my first three months, in which my general state was either terrified (what the hell am I doing??) or face-burningly embarrassed (of my terrible Spanish), it was such a comfort to arrive at ‘El Olmo’ cafe, where they would greet me and go and fetch my ‘cafe con leche con tres medialunas’ without me having to ask (nostalgic sigh). I am actually writing this in my chosen Hamburg cafe at the moment…they don’t quite recognize me yet but I do know the code for the toilet off by heart…small steps…
• Join groups. Groups who do things that you like doing will be full of people who do the things you like to do! My only warning with this one is that, sometimes people do things you like doing in very different ways to you, for example, trying to save the planet without having a sense of humour about it…UGH!