Tuesday, 3-4-96
11:39 PM London
5:39 PM E-Town
GREAT MAIL DAY! I got 4 birthday cards! ☺︎ One from Meg, one from Gramma Dee & Grampa Jack, one from Cheryl, and one from Hillary Hunt (pictured below)! All special in their own way… and meant so much! ☺︎ I also got a ton of e-mails! I got messages from: Mom, Dad, Meg, Kelly, Deb, Ruth & 2 surprises — Kevin Mitchell & Fr. Basil! ☺︎
Mid-morning I found myself a bit overwhelmed! In International Business our group was picked out of a hat to give our presentation next Mon.! In addition to all other school work & stuff I have to do in the next few weeks this lil’ bonus stressed me out… Jillian & Raymond weren’t too excited about it either! But being the good sports that we are, we planned to meet tonight at “Deep Pan” for dinner & then work on our presentation on Guinness PLC for Mon.
After class I stayed to do e-mail but had to stop before I had written everyone back, cuz I wasn’t feeling up to par… I hadn’t really eaten breakfast or lunch, had gotten my period, and was just, as I already said, overwhelmed. So I finally realized I need to go home!
I headed back to Pembridge where I had lunch & then napped for an hour or so… Much needed! When I awoke, about 4 PM, I felt much better! Lori & I went to get our bus tickets for Ireland this weekend at Council Travel, so now it is official! ☺︎ I spent most of the late afternoon & early evening working on my Modern British Society Presentation I am giving tomorrow on “Ethnicity & Race in Britain.”
Then, after a long & social dinner at “Deep Pan,” w/ Jillian, Raymond & Katie we came back here to Pembridge. Jill, Raymond & I ended up divvying up what we had to do for our presentation on Monday, so we wouldn’t have to stay up late to just get it done tonight! Jill & Katie stayed & hung out for a while… that was fun! Katie is turning out to be really cool! I used to think she wasn’t very nice, but she is proving my image of her wrong… ☺︎
It seems like a lot of people are gonna come out to celebrate my birthday on Wed.! Lori just asked me if I was excited about my birthday! ☺︎ For some reason the question came just at the right time for me… She probably got a more in depth answer than she had in mind… But it meant a lot just the same! As we discussed birthdays, she agreed it is so hard not to always have high expectations of what your birthday will be like…
I can’t believe in less than 24 hrs. now (it is 12:39 AM now on 3-5-96) I will be 21! ☺︎ YIKES! Que Sera, Que Sera!?! ☺︎ I just feel so blessed to be alive & in England having this amazing experience… CHEERS! ☺︎
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Note from Present Day Kathy: I’m struck in this entry by how times have changed, in terms of how we convey birthday wishes in 2019 vs. 1996… Today is actually my 44th birthday, 23 years and 2 days after I wrote this, and the primary way my loved ones are communicating is through Facebook posts on my timeline vs. sending me cards via snail mail, especially from overseas/across the pond. If you’d told me that back then, I’d have had no idea what you were talking about.
Today I looked for and found the birthday cards referenced in this entry and was struck by the one that my friend, (not her real name) Hillary Hunt, sent me (pictured above). Two things especially stood out to me about the card. The first was that the quote on the front is attributed to Marjory Stoneman Douglas, B. 1890, American Conservationist. At the time I received the card, I am sure I appreciated the quote, but don’t remember back then having heard of Marjory Stoneman Douglas. However, a little over a year ago, on February 14, 2018, there was a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (named for the conservationist) in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 students and staff members were killed and another 17 were injured. Since then the American Conservationist’s name has become more well known, because of what happened and how the student survivors from the school, as well as some of the deceaseds‘ parents, have become incredible advocates for common sense gun control and laws. The second thing was that my friend wrote, on the inside of the card “I saw this card & I immediately thought it would be right for you!” I am moved that the quote made her think of me back then and am glad that 23 years later we are still in touch and connect often.
I appreciate how I described feeling overwhelmed, as well as taking care of myself that day. It would be another 17 years before I would be diagnosed with Moderate Generalized Anxiety Disorder and learn a lot more skills to help me cope better. That said, even if I didn’t have a name for some of my emotional struggles back then, I was certainly self-aware enough to know what was happening and I did have things that worked for me, like stopping what I was doing when I realized I’d feel better if I went home and rested.
There’s a fine line anyway, between more typical anxiety and feeling overwhelmed vs. a diagnosable condition. Everyone feels overwhelmed at a times and that’s okay. I’ve learned after many more years of life experience and therapy, as well as 3 years taking medication (between 2014 – 2017), to help me cope, that the goal for me is not to feel nothing/numb my emotions, but rather to feel/acknowledge and work them through.
I recall going to Deep Pan for dinner a few times during my semester abroad in London. As with many other restaurants and businesses that I patronized back then, I decided to look it up online to see if it still exists. It appears not to be there anymore, but may’ve have only closed 5 or so years ago.
This entry also makes me want to find, assuming I did actually save them, the papers and presentations that I worked on and gave/turned in that semester, as I bet I’d find them even more interesting at this stage of my life than I did back then. I’ve looked a bit around our house, but have yet to find any. I recently ordered something that I can hook up to my laptop and potentially read things off of old floppy/hard disks. So if I saved any of this stuff as files that way, I might still be able to access them.
As I talked about with my entries about the Adventure Weekend in Wales we went that semester, my observations about (not her real name) Katie are a healthy reminder that our initial perceptions of other may not always be accurate and/or people are complicated and we can still have good relationships with those we don’t feel a connection to right away.
I also appreciate that my roommate asked me how I felt about my birthday coming up and the discussion it led to. I’ve often struggled with expectations throughout my life and trying not to be disappointed when milestone events, such as birthday and new year’s celebrations don’t live up to what I imagined they could or would be. I continue to work on that today, especially being my 44th birthday, as I did back then, anticipating my 21st.
23 years later, I still feel blessed (and lucky) to be alive and to be in Chicago/the States having an amazing experience! ☺︎
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Reminder: Unless I’ve been given permission to use people’s actual names, in most cases I’ve removed or replaced the names of the real people who were part of my journey/experience there, in effort to protect and respect their identities/privacy in my London Semester Journal entries. I will also not share details that I think and feel are too personal for anyone I interacted with, my loved ones, and me.
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Here’s the back story of My London Semester Journals from 1996, including what prompted me to revisit and decide to share them here in 2018. And here’s a list a list of the entries, which I will update as I share them.
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