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It has been a good week..

So.

After a week (or so) off the wagon, I ran for the last six days. It was only supposed to be five, but the weather spoke to me. Putting my trainers in the wash was my idea of forcing myself to take Saturday off, but the urge came (along with the ol' No Excuses mantra haunting my almost constant internal monologue) so I strapped on a pair of "gEnUiNe FaKe" Nike's that I acquired early on in my English Exodus, however, I'm now paying for it, in the form of huge blisters along the side of each foot..

What else..

Finally managed to sift through thousands of photos taken over the past five years or so, quite a few tasty gems in there if I do say so myself. Laptop isn't sharing the enthusiasm, flooding the screen with an almost constant cry of low disk space. Not much I can do about that m8.

Sketching..

With a limited fund, comes prioritisation. The days of getting paint on dizzy are long gone, so after about six months of almost exclusively sketching in cheap as chips highlighters, I have now decided to crack out the paint pens. Definitely cheaper than dropping X amount of foreign currency on "sprey boya", especially when I'm (or at least i'd like to think i'm) trying out new ideas, that have a high chance of flopping on a wall..

I think I'm also over the hump on today's 24 hour fast. 

Yeah, I've started that again too..

Is this routine starting to sound familiar?

It should.

Friday 20th August 2021

I am sat in an attic, eating a bowl of noobishly chopped watermelon, hiding from the blistering (38 degree) Mediterranean heat..

I got up at six today.

 

Admittedly, I DID go back to sleep for an hour, but never the less I managed to make it out the door and go for a decent workout before the sun becomes too unbearable.. 

 

Not a bad start to the day at all. 

 

However I am now at the witching hour, the time of the afternoon when I am not quite sure what to do with myself, hence why I am writing this, to see if I can get some form of clarity or guidance on what’s going on in right now in my life..

 

As this is an odd period for me. 

 

After seven years of being back in England, I made the decision that it was time for a new chapter. It didn’t happen overnight, a lot of different factors where in play, which led to me packing up and heading in a different direction. Since making that decision, which I do not regret, a lot has happened. Good and..not bad, per say, however I am definitely at a place that feels eerily similar to my former surroundings. That feeling of uncertainty, a lack of control, no clarity on what is ahead of me or what I can do to navigate these quite unclear waters I have dived into..

 

..

 

There is a part of me that tells myself, look, you’ve been here before, do what you did then. That place was (FAR) worse, as was the challenges you faced, and you did just fine. However there’s also a part of me that doesn’t want to have to revert back to that time anymore. I don’t want to have to bring that up every time things get hard in the outside world.

 

It’s draining.

 

Time has passed and with it, so has my need to constantly remind myself of what I did under those circumstances and because I did, that I don’t have an excuse to feel a certain way when things get difficult, now that I’m back..

 

Anyway..

 

..

 

Shortly upon my arrival, I imagine as a reaction to my somewhat disheveled and quite exhausted appearance, my father imparted me with some advice as to how I should cope with the coming challenges ahead..

“In Italy, they say un passo alla volta”

 

What does that mean.

 

“one step at a time..”

 

It doesn’t.

 

But it's close enough..