Hey my dear, miss you a lot.
Just wanted to let you know that I’ve finally confirmed my dates for the Paris/UK trip in September. I actually procrastinated to look into this for a while until the prices went up, and I finally had to decide on something.
5Sep night: HK -> Paris
6-12 Sep: Paris
12Sep: Paris -> London
12-16 Sep: London
16Sep: London -> Manchester
16-24 Sep: Manchester
24Sep morning: Manchester -> HK
I will actually arrive at Paris a day before everyone else, I hope that’d give me some personal space to mentally prepare for the work itinerary. That’s also why I am stopping by London before I head to Manchester to visit my parents, just so that I can have some alone time to recover in between work and parents. I think my brother and his gf might actually be coming too at Manchester during that same week. Afterwards, they’ll do their own travelling to London and Paris.
Unlike the previous trips where I’d do a bit of travelling to other Europe cities, I decided not to this time and tried to keep my trip as short as possible. I feel that at this state, I am just a bit more inclined to residing in my home in HK as much as I can so that I can feel less restless.
I lost track of how many times I’ve done these (semi) solo long-haul trips in the past 2 years, yet I was still so overwhelmed by anxiety and stress as I booked my ticket. It is for moments like this, I have to remind myself that I’ve come to resolve I am choosing to trust that God knows what is good for me and if this trip is what he has in plan for me, I’ll follow where he leads me even though I don’t understand at all.
Lastly, I just wanted to share with you something super ridiculous and ironic: As part of work we’ll be visiting Disneyland Paris. I’ve actually been there twice when I did my exchange semester in 2018, and both times were with Sree. And this time based on our work itinerary, it seems like we’ll be going there on 10 Sep, which happens to also be SREE’s BIRTHDAY……can you believe it?
Honestly, if I am feeling anything about this “coincidence”, it’ll be that God is real and he likes to make jokes like this 🙄 There’s obviously a side of me that worries revisiting Paris will trigger some emotions deep inside me. But I was actually quite surprised that when I was trying to recall that from my memory in the last few weeks, I don’t remember much of it even though I lived there for 4 months. I suspect it’s because my subconscious mind intentionally erased those memories. But regardless, I feel that even if I am to be triggered, it’ll unlikely be the “good old days” of my relationship with Sree, because I know very clearly in my heart that I moved on from that for a very long time, just like how I found myself relatively comfortable when I visited Singapore last year for work.
Miss you so very much, Andy, every single day and hour. It almost makes me think that maybe I should visit Dundee again this time, haha.
Comments