There's always a silver lining :-)

In among so much change, some parts of life carry on as normal.

My brain is starting to scramble languages and sometimes people speak Croatian and I think they've been speaking English. I guess this is a good sign, because it means my comprehension is switching sides. The air is warm and muggy and I am reminded of when I lived here, so many years ago, in different times when Croatia was still, officially, Yugoslavia. The sounds outside take me back to another time and the skinny street cats too. Everything here feels different to me, yet somehow the same as some other life I once had.

Those around me are familiar now, but not from my normal life. The thing is, my normal life, as was, is gone. The home I had, the job I had too, quite probably, and I will start the last stage of my counselling training when I return with a new group of people: people who are strangers to me right now, but who, in a few months, will know things about me that more than 99% of the world will never know.

Everything feels uncertain and my association with this changes, like waves on the shore. Each moment feels different - sometimes I am excited about what might be, sometimes uncertain and afraid, sometimes fearful that I won't find a job, sometimes concerned about how I will live, sometimes sure that all will be okay as it always has been okay and sometimes just nothing except wondering what will be and that, really, is something none of us knows for sure.

My belly has been bloated and I started to worry I might be pregnant, momentarily, (a thought that passes every woman's mind every so often). I then dreamt I was and the feeling felt so familiar (even though I never have been) that I awoke knowing I wasn't. I felt too different in waking life to how I felt in my dream. Funny how clever the mind is. I am guessing the bloating was a change in diet to enormous amounts of bread, which my body is not used to.

This morning I had cramps, which brought my confirmation. In among all this uncertainty and change, I woke up this morning with agonising cramps in my belly and was brought a reminder that some things continue - this monthly agony, while painful, is familiar. This means I know how I will feel each time the pain comes and I know how I will feel when it goes away, most likely fading this afternoon and disappearing by tomorrow. Though most of life is unknown and unpredictable, there are some things we always know. This, oddly, brings me comfort.