"Nothing's gonna change my world" -The Beatles
Every year, we grow. In so many ways, we grow. We grow older, richer or poorer, wiser (sometimes) and grow in what we value and how we approach adversity. Life is never a continuous straight string of good or easy times for any of us. But I must say this year was immensely difficult and at times I felt as though the string of bad or difficult times would never end. I started my year off in Edinburgh, my beloved Edinburgh, and at that time I thought that's where I'd be right now, ending the year. I'd be carrying Tesco bags full of Cadbury and mince pies through the rainy cobblestones streets up to my blue door on Panmure Place. We'd have 'Crimbo' dinner with the mates, have pints in the Grass Market and the December nights when we were feeling lazy, we'd be in our flat playing monopoly with Murray and Rhi. But I'm not doing any of those things. Even if I find myself trying to grab for this existence again or dreaming about British adventures, it still doesn't change the fact that that is no longer my life. My new/old life is so physically and existentially far from that. Life has brought me back to Oregon and has revived elements of myself which I had forgotten but Oregon has also changed me in ways that I wouldn't have predicted at the start of 2015. I can never get over this phenomena of what's it like to come back to home after years away. Some things do change, yes, but it feels mostly how I left it, in an eerie sort of way...overall the thing that has changed the most is how I view home and how much I feel like a foreigner within it's boundaries.When I knew that I had to come back, I thought that it would be the hyped event of the year for my friends and family. How self involved, but that was how I truly felt. The reality that this wasn't the case occurred to me just two days after Michael left to go back to the UK and I was in this new/old world on my own. I was taught a rude lesson at the time; that coming home was never about me, it was about them. No one sought to hear stories of afar or how deeply distraught I was about leaving. It was clear to see that my friends were going through difficulties and needed more attention than my own. Any woe that I felt towards Michael leaving had to be pushed aside as well. However, it came a few months later when I truly realized that sometimes the point of your life is to be there for others. When my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had that major coinciding operation...that was our life. That was everything. Even if I felt alone or panicked or scared shitless, I had to keep it together and try to make my dad smile; through father-daughter dinners at the hospital or walks with Lucy afterwards. My purpose was to make my dad happy even if was a small moment. On the other side of the coin, my sisters and my bestfriend had babies this year. A true light in the dark. Through these experiences, life taught me selflessness in a kinder a way, a way which I could smile with ease. From cleaning my sisters apartment to throwing baby showers to taking care of big sis when her new baby sister was arriving into the world. Even if these were small helps, it gave me a new sense of worth that I hadn't felt before. A sense that I was making others' lives easier...even if for a moment. Prior to this year, I gained a sense of importance by learning at universities and gaining knowledge from traveling and becoming more culturally competent. That's what I measured my worth by and in a sense, I still do. But there's more to self worth and I learnt that this year. The point of my existence was to help others through the good and the bad that this year brought them. I know that I'm not Mother Teresa and I have a far way to go to being her but I'm a work in progress. As for Sarah Demoran, I have found my own catharsis from listening to music loudly while driving my bug, taking baths while listening to the Shins and writing (of course). These are the moments where I have to question how much I have really changed since I was 17 because these moments feel just as cathartic and freeing now as they did back then. I guess there will always be some things about me that will travel through time. And as I look towards the future, I am looking with a completely different lens. One in which expect things to be completely different. I have no idea where I will be this time in 2016. Maybe Michael's job will take us to the beaches of Hawaii or maybe to a rural area in Idaho or maybe we will be back in the U.K having a propa pint and laugh. I really don't know.
