Eventually the time comes when you realize your days in Warsaw are running out. Your friends console you that you can come visit anytime but you all know it’s not the same. This city became your home for plenty of months and you built so many memories between these streets, it has become a part of your life’s story.
What am I going back to?
In my case, and hopefully in yours too, routine in Warsaw was nice and comfortable. Perhaps I was extra lucky to be having a room on my own (that’s karma giving me something back after spending most of my life sharing a bunk bed with my sister, hmm) and to get along amazingly well with my flatmates, my friends. Also the prices in this city are much lower than in mine and for the first time in my life I could afford some cocktails on Saturday nights.
Athens has a huge housing problem, perhaps I will have to stay with my parents again, and I’m really pessimistic about the job offers I could have -it’s also my last year in university so classes will take up a big part of my time. And to top this up, I will also leave behind feeling safe coming home at night or even crossing the street.
Where’s the positive side of this transition? Am I going backwards?
Well, despite knowing my quality of life will drop, I’m really excited to return. Think about your life long friends cheering that you are finally available for movie marathons with them and their cats, think about your grandparents waiting for your visits and planning all week what they could cook for you, think about your favorite bar’s house wine that tastes like all your teenage years in a glass. Now that covid restrictions are lifted, I am also finally going back to my university, and there’s no other problem I have ever missed in my life. Sleeping on the metro and relying on 1.5 euro coffee to wake me up while my classmates are trying to fill me up on the gossips I have missed, sounds heavenly right now.
So, how to deal with the post-project depression?
Here is my tact!
- Observe how happy your pet is that you will be around. (mine is a bird so he doesn’t really care but let me pretend the feelings are mutual.)
- Make plans with your friends to go to your group’s favorite places.
- Eat every snack you loved but hadn’t had the chance to get in so long.
- Remember your parents’s smile every time they sees you again after a long time.
- Cheer that you don’t need to speak in English or broken Polish anymore and now you can understand everything the people on the metro are arguing over.
- Make a new start! Your country may be the place you have spent most of your life in but can an entire country ever run out of things to explore and people to meet?
- Pick up new hobbies! Perhaps start learning a new language to prepare for your next escape!
I hope something of this blog will seem useful to you 🙂
Andriana