reflections on 2018
so here’s my annual recap. 2018 was an interesting year. it was a year of comfort and discomfort at the same time.
the year started out with a lot of snow. way more snow than London is used to. i woke up to tiny barely there snowflakes and trains would break down. i got snow days off of grad school. it was a beautiful nuisance.
my husband’s visa application had issues so we were apart for 7 months. it wasn’t as bad as i thought it would be. i learned that i’m surprisingly okay by myself.
i made it through another graduate degree. it was tough. i felt imposter syndrome and burnt out. i wasn’t sleeping well for weeks. exams and deadlines gave me anxiety. talking to my professors, classmates, and the psychological services at uni did help eventually.
i enjoyed getting closer to grad school friends. despite the pressure, i enjoyed every bit of my degree. we had a couple fun field trips. i watched the country around me get excited over world cup and watched the football matches in random pubs with friends, sometimes getting home soaked in someone’s beer.
shortly after husband‘s visa issues cleared, we packed everything we own and moved out of our lovely flat. it was bittersweet saying goodbye to London but after 3 years it was time to move on. we shipped most of our stuff back to Indonesia and went traveling.
Munchen was comfortable. Zagreb was memorable. Hallstaat was pretty. Salzburg was tidy. Venice was magical. Vienna was sophisticated. Prague was beautiful. Paris was fun.
we made it back to Indonesia and shortly after went to Japan to spend time with family for a month. then to Surabaya for a week with extended family.
i got a job as a GP. then husband fell ill. got admitted to the ICU for dengue hemorrhagic fever. we rang in New Years huddling in a hospital bed. suddenly the small stuff doesn’t matter anymore.
oh but what a year of memories.
i’m not sure what 2019 will bring. at this point i don’t have many plans for myself. but if there’s one thing i took away from 2018 is that no matter what happens, i’ll be okay. sometimes it’s hard to remember that.