One week to go - of emotions, challenges and realisations

One week to go. One week to be back to Europe. One week to leave Kenya.

These last weeks have been extremely hard - and this is why I kind of disappeared.  

After having Covid, and being physically and emotionally drained by the illness, I have been worrying a lot - and about lots of things.

A double quarantine is waiting for me - in Italy and then in the UK. This to avoid quarantining in one of the British governmental Hotel. 

Brexit is also complicating my movements, as I am not meant to be out of the UK for more than 6 months.

These last weeks have just being killing me - physically,  as I couldn't sleep, mentally,  as my brain was spinning around to find a easy way to come back,  and emotionally, as I am now down to the lowest level of my personal resources to cope with all I have been through in these pasts months.

What bother me the most, though, is the fact that all these bureaucratic,  political, epidemiological issues have really dragged me away from the last nice and happy moments I could live in Kenya - and from the nice people I had the blessing to met here.

I suppose this is life, or at least: it is life for a traveller in 2021.

So, now, some nice times of cuddles and food and sun is waiting for me at home. I crave to be in Italy, with my family and friends, to recharge my body and my mind. 

And then, I wish I will be back to work, to my PhD, to my "choices of life" in the UK.

I always wished this blog could be authentic and without filters. So there is no point in me pretending to be okay or to have experienced only exciting adventures.

I am scared, and worried, and tired, and I feel guilty and full of regrets.

Although, I don't want these to be the memories I take home from Kenya. 

What I take home from Kenya is possibly the most significant life experience ever. I coped for so long, in the middle of a pandemic, settling and working in a country which is so different from mine. I tried and struggled to make new friends. I resisted with not seeing dears' faces for half a year.

Also, I saw lots of new places, ate lots of different food, and learnt plenty of new things. I proved myself to be more resilient than  I thought. 

I haven't done this alone, of course. My friends, there in Europe, has been my crutches for the last weeks of panicking and tears, of voice messages and calls.

My family has proven to be extraordinary. After so many years of travelling, they are still there waiting for me to come back, even if it only for few days. I can't be grateful enough for them being understanding and supportive, and for not have said, not even once, that I needed to face the reality of my life choices on my own. That would have break me, but they have been generous and extraordinary in helping me through the difficulties of the rocky path I chose for myself.

They are just there, reading to catch me when I fall, ready to feed me with cuddles and food when I am sad. 

And Chris, who has experienced with me all the struggles and the pain of these last weeks - and, I hope, the joy and the satisfactions of the previous months. Physically distant but always emotionally connected, it's like you have gone through this with my same body and mind. How much time did we spend to look together at the gov.uk website, and worrying and hypothesing and hoping. You have always been a step ahead me - with thinking, planning and exploring possibilities, with strategising my wellbeing and your care for me.

You have been my spine, and my bones, and probably also my bone marrow if only we could be compatible - but we are just too different and so perfectly matched.

And you have done the most important thing ever: you have remember me plenty of times why I was here, what I needed to achieve, and why that was the right choice. You have never contested, never complained, never gave up, despite this trip was difficult and had impacted you too.

Yesterday, while I was in a remote, rural village of Western Kenya, someone hand over a kid to me. I really didn't want to hold him as kids usually cry when they see a mzungu - and I was so low that I would not have been able to handle upsetting feelings.

Clumpsy, I looked at him, trying to appear happy and hopping to prevent crying. He just stared at me, and then he put his head on my chest. He closed his eyes like he was in the most comfortable place on Earth. After so much worries, that tenderness made me cry.

This will spund excessive but: for a second I felt like I was the metaphor of Life. Life can be challenging, and difficult, and especially: different from what we are looking for or we expect. Maybe, what we have to do, it is just to look straight into its eyes, as this kid did to me, and to abandon ourselves into it. 

(And also, remember that it's not a fault to talk about your feelings, emotions, and worries. Mental health is a thing, let's recognise it, and ask for help).