things that are

And so suddenly, there are familiar faces seemingly everywhere, at least if I stick to the campus and to uni parties.

It's like carving a space for myself in the fabric of the city, learning about the farmer's market every Thursday, about the dude at the cashier at Sainsbury's who's always smiling. About bus lines and tube lines and the quietest roads for a walk. About the place that does a cheap vegan English breakfast, about the weird nooks and crannies of the UCL campus.

And sometimes I still forget that this is London.

Because now it's just a place with tap water that tastes slightly off. It's the place with so many people and so many unknown streets. A place with a tiny room for me, one overlooking the less scenic parts of the city.

There are essays and gigs and night buses and Skype calls. I'm building a life for myself from the ground up and if there's one thing London has managed to teach me thus far it is this:

Things are so much easier when you have some semblance of an idea about who you are and what you want. When you've managed to unearth a certain fearlessness in yourself, when there is a part of you that believes so fiercely in you making it through this. That alone will carry you through these strange streets filled with strange people. A bit of trust.

(And the thing is this: you will find a collection of people who will make you happy, even though you don't know them yet and everything about them is new and unfamiliar. There will be people who will seem good, on some fundamental level. The guy with a beard, the girl with braids. The guy with his sister's kids' names tattooed on his forearm. The girl even more Nordic than me. The American guy who talks about musical theatre. The swimmer. The activist. These are people who might one day form some semblance of a chosen family, which is after all what it all boils down to, doesn't it.)


And here is a song for late nights.