It is done

Dear diary,

   The emotions I feel right now are so strong that I felt I should tell you all about it. It is done. My family and some dear family friends helped us move all Oliver's and my stuff into my grandma's apartment. We worked a whole lot, it was a reaaaally long day but boy have we succeeded to do so many things! 

   My dad asked me earlier today when I started dreaming about this. I said it was at least 10 years ago. It's been so long since I wanted to have my own little place that I can call home. All my close friends got the chance to move out so I was really looking forward to my own experience. 

   I'm a really good planner. The man helping me transport my boxes said so himself. So I've been planning this for as long as my dad gave us the OK. I had a lot of pictures in my head of how I wanted my place to look like. All this inspired by tons of photos I saw on Pinterest and other interior decoration websites. So I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted vintage but classy, romantic but cute, comfy and really cozy. I was really happy when after so many hours of work, I saw that my dream came true today. I really have the best home I could ever have. The surroundings of the block of flats are so relaxing, and the place itself has so much meaning to me. I have a lot of good childhood memories here. And I will also never forget my grandma's eggplant salad. I loved it so much that it made me think: if people remember me for one single thing that I did absolutely wonderfully (like her eggplant salad) then my life would be all worth it. So, even if she was a very simple countryside girl, my grandma did so many good things in her life and educated my dad and me and my brother so well that... here I am today. She was definitely my dearest grandma ever and I am so lucky to have the chance of living in her old apartment. Not to mention the fact that I am 5 minutes away of my former highschool. The one I breathed for, the one I absolutely loved. I am a very sentimental person and when objects or places have a sentimental value, they are really dear to me. So this is why this little apartment is definitely the most wonderful home I could have. I'm crying as we speak, but know, dear diary, that these are tears of joy, of longing and of deep affection. Towards my grandma, my life and everything in it. 

   But there is another side to this story. The one that means that living on my own means living apart from my family. I know we're only 20 minutes away, but the emotional separation is stronger than the actual one. I've never ever lived away from them more than 2 weeks last year during summer camp. So tonight, when they went home I looked at them and started tearing up. I wanted to take a picture of them to remember this very intense moment but for some reason I didn't. I still remember their faces though. My dad was really tired after so much work but my mom was very happy for me. So happy and proud. I will still see them a lot from now on, because I'm a family girl and I can't stay away from them, but this is exactly why it felt so sad to say goodbye to living with them. 

   So now you know how I feel. I'm still crying, but they are still good tears. I'm living my dream and I wouldn't change ANYTHING about when and how things happened. The fact that I moved out now, 4 months after getting engaged to the most wonderful being on Earth, makes it more and more intense. 

   I am living my dreaaaaaaam!

Teary and happy,

D.

Hang in there!

Dear diary,

   I probably told you this before, but now and then I keep having a deep sense of helplessness when I'm at work. I realized that my first year in the kindergarten was very different to this one (the third). Back then I was full of desire, hope and will to change the world/the kindergarten into a better place and help all the needy kids. Now I know I can actually change only 1% of what I wanted back then and that makes me feel really useless sometimes. 

   It's hard to see yourself willing to help but facing the resistance of the parents who don't want to cooperate or are absolutely convinced that their kids are perfectly fine. Just as tough is to see how many kids have permissive parents who let them have everything they want without any rule or boundary. So then, when they come to the kindergarten we face really difficult kids who don't want to obey you at all and who always do the opposite of what they're told. I know, you might say we don't know how to act properly, but believe me, we've tried EVERYTHING and sometimes, in days like this you just collapse. 

   And little by little, I started resembling some of my fellow coworkers' way of thinking. They left the educational system in favor of opening their own private practice because they realized that working in a kindergarten or school doesn't bring you the satisfaction you wished for at first. I don't seriously consider leaving the system yet, but it's funny how in the first year I wouldn't understand them, and now I feel exactly the same. It's very, very tough to be a psychologist that isn't listened to and even harder to be a teacher. It takes all the patience you have and a great deal of work done with yourself in lowering your expectations regarding the kids and their families. 

    But then again, there are days like TODAY, when everything went smoothly. I had great activities with the kids, they were all very involved, willing to cooperate and full of love and for a second there I thought that I might not be changing the whole world, but 1% is a good start.

   So, there you have it. My huge smile today from morning to evening, everywhere I went. I really had a great day and I needed to remind myself that I should hang in there because life has its ups and downs and we all have good days and bad days and I should just keep doing what I love without expecting so much from myself or... the world :)

   By the way, Oliver and I are moving in together this weekend and I've been packing my stuff for a month now. I never believed I own SO MANY THINGS and SO MANY BOOKS. It's all very exciting and I can't wait to tell you all about the move and what comes after :)

Still smiling,

D.