Postcards from the Labyrinth

Image: The first film i went to see without my mum!

Dear Family and Friend,

The time of year has come where we have to doubt if we can ever believe ourselves ever again. Two weeks into New Year glass of red in our hand remembering the night, bright eyed (the champagne) and innocent, when we declared to the world and to ourselves what virtuous thing we are about to do. Today, that pureness of festive good will having met the light of 12 whole days, seems to have got lost with the tv remote down the back of the sofa, and we realise that we haven´t actually reduced drinking alcohol at all. Trainers are neatly lined up still at the back of our wardrobes and you find yourself unable to stop yourself from scoffing chocolate every time you go into the kitchen.

But we still have chance! We can prove to ourselves that we can gyrate our bad habits out of the orbit that we are presently flowing in. (Everyday is really a new opportunity, but don’t say it too loud else we’ll be doing an awful lot of stuff tomorrow.)

So today, I’m starting on my New Year’s resolution. It is to open up and share a little of my inner world. The thing is that in the past I had no problems sending out group mails, because I was travelling, and I felt I had the postcard right to email home. I was treading into new territories, I was experiencing new adventures, and I needed to feel that I had an anchor back home so as to not get lost, again.

These days I have become stable. On the outside world it is really my only news. I have been teaching English for 9 years (albeit in lots of different academies, orphanages, universities, countries), I have been living in Barcelona 7 years (albeit in 10 different houses) but now (drum roll please),

drrrrrrrrrrr

..for the last 2 years, I have become absolutely stable. Yes, yes, feel that rush of fresh air woosh through into stunned silence…

I work in the same single establishment, the UB, I live in the same house (the longest I think I have ever lived in one house as an adult) and I am going out with the same man, which is coming up to record breaking proportions.

But constancy is not totally alien to me. What I have been doing almost steadily since I’ve been travelling (it all began in Patagonia in 1999) is an internal journey. Nepal in 2004 got me on a new track and recently I just finished a two year masters in Jungian Psychology and Psychoanalysis. I’ve been going at it some. And now, really I’m in the same situation as when I set out from Heathrow with Chris 14 years ago. I need an anchor. I need to send post cards of where I have been on this internal adventure so I don´t get lost in the labrynths of the mind. Now, all of you on this list have walked some of this journey with me and we have something special between us because of our joint experiences, our shared learning and the love created through them. And as a result, to show my infinite gratitude, I’m going to bare face use you: I need an audience.

I need you now as an extended family the same way that me and my little bro needed my mum and dad on our Special Theatre Performance nights while coming out from the small hiding place behind the curtains of the double patio doors to say “I say, I say, I say, what do you call….” Mum and Dad would laugh hysterically (not exactly at the joke) and clap politely at the end.

Maybe you are going through a New Year’s resolution to reduce your inbox to a manageable amount and respect to you (but remember to send me a mail so I can remove you from the list). Conversely if you want to send this onto other people, feel free. And if you want to add your tuppence worth email me, and you want to have a knees up discussion for all and sundry, I’m also going to post the notes on a Blog.

But no discussion today, just like a first day of class. Me prancing around and trying to be affectionately nice and then doing a register. Students leaving dazed.

It’s not too late is it to say Happy New Year is it?

Happy New Year.

Thanks, mil thanks for anchoring me.

Lots of love

Julia