There was a point in my college life (a point that lasted for 1,5 years, with breaks for going home on holidays), when I was in Oxford and, after a certain incident had left me rather butthurt disappointed in human relations, I was so comfortably left to my own devices…. that somewhere inside me I just can’t stop missing that time.
I could refuse going outside more than 2-3 short times in a week, and do so only if absolutely necessary or for things I enjoyed. Once a few weeks I would go to London, usually just to buy essential stuff in JapanShop and the big book store next to it, and visit Portobello and Electric Cinema (seriously, I’d fly to London once a few months just to visit it, if I could) and come back happy and content. Even if it was lonenly and I wished I could do it with someone who would enjoy doing it with me, I still enjoyed it very much, all the quiet walks in strange places and long rides on the OxfordTube bus. Most of the time though, I would spend most of my days at my desk from morning to evening, studying while watching recorded dramas and tv shows non-stop – which worked fantastically well with my brain for some reason. I didn’t eat much, and drunk delicious teas all day long, and lost 10kg I can’t lose now, and my bones felt so much better for it. And on some evenings I’d get some delicious dinner and watch heart-healing asian movies while drinking sweet wines. And the stories I watched every day made my soul fuller and more balanced. I could spend weeks not speaking to other human beings more then hello/thank you to a cashier in a supermarket, but I became fluent in another language in less than 6 months.

I’m coming back to these memories often now because right now I can’t even get my mind balanced enough to feel like starting to watch a movie without feeling too tired or anxious about something to concentrate… let alone actually getting through one.

(an old selfie from that time)