Step out of the Box, Britafina, is that You?

Stayed in most of the weekend. Did a little shopping for the place, bought more plants. For some reason plants make a wide open place feel a lot warmer. A lot of sunlight comes into the loft, and with huge windows it almost becomes a greenhouse. I continued to decorate the place. What's ironic is that this place is a lot more decorated than my place in Chicago. I have a lot more art/pictures up on the wall than I ever did in my old condo. Not only that, but a lot more plants! I think being away from home and the fact that I have all this time to myself attributes to this.

The solitude at times can drive me crazy and I have so much time to think to myself by living alone. This can be good and bad, and at the same time, its like some weird learning process I go through by my myself. You would think that after awhile you have a good grasp of how you are as a person, what makes you happy or sad, excited or scared, but you put yourself in a situation like mine, its not as trivial. I've been put outside my element, my comfort zone, and the person I think I know is a little different.

For example, my social comfort zone has disappeared. The comfort of having something planned for the weekend without any effort expended by me has disappeared. Usually events, parties, get togethers all form around me. I don’t have to worry about not having something to do, and even a weekend alone to just chill is so hard to come by. Now my world has turned upside down and I have to adapt. Adaptation.

So on Sunday, even before mass started, I was hitting that "deep thought" zone as I sat there at church. At social gatherings, I always get the question: "So why did you move to London?" I always give the same standard response: "Opportunity to travel, career move, change." I seem to have a problem acknowledging the last reason. Change. Stepping out of the Box. Getting out of my comfort zone. I mean physically I'm here. I've stepped out of my comfort zone. But mentally, unfortunately, I'm still back home. I'm still in Chicago. Its been a month now and I guess that's normal, but I think at some point I really have to embrace the fact that I have to step out of my comfort zone mentally. I can't wait for people to call me, wait to get invited to parties, and the social habits that I had in Chicago have to disappear. I have to adapt to the social scene out here and make the effort. I have to step outside of my box, get out of my comfort zone and make the efforts to call people, plan outings for myself or even just get out of my flat. I'm not use to doing all this because I leaned on my social circles to have it all done for me, and it just kind of happened on its own. Its almost like I have to change a little bit of myself to adapt to this new environment. Staying in and feeling homesick is not exactly adaptation. Too bad its easier said that done! But at least I now know what needs to change. Changing is the difficult task.

So enough about this deep thought stuff. I think I'm mentally exhausted from trying to articulate all of that.

Anyway, so to practice "Stepping outside of the box" I went out on Sunday to meet up with an old friend for her birthday and not only that, but afterwards I finally went to that Filipino restaurant for dinner. But that's another story in itself. So stay tuned.