It’s the beginning of July, and my boyfriend and I are in Budapest! It’s the second stop on our week-long road trip through Europe, and the city is buzzing with life. I’ve spent months planning this trip, and I can’t wait to finally spend some quality time together. Lord knows we need it.

Then it’s the beginning of August. I’m sitting on my newly purchased and built Ikea bed, looking out on my newly rented studio apartment, and a view I don’t yet recognise as home. There’s only one last name written on the front door, and that one is spelt wrong too. I’ve just removed the blood sugar tracking app from my phone since it’s not my business anymore. I get up, make my breakfast in an unfamiliar kitchen and start lesson planning.

It’s now mid-October, and the past months feel like a blur, as cliché as it sounds. I had to leave behind not only my partner, the person I thought I was going to live the rest of my life with, but also the city I had spent nine years building a community and home in. I switched careers, getting away from the restaurant industry (thank heavens for that) and started my first full year as a high school teacher.

Thankfully, I’m not unfamiliar with settling into a new space to call home, but this time it hasn’t gone as easily as it has in the past. Usually, I’m excited to relocate; to explore my new surroundings for everything they have to offer. This time, the only real things I’ve been excited about are related to my location near the international airport and a large bookstore. Yay, I guess.

I’m finding myself dealing with the familiar emotions of sadness and heartache, but also with some quite unfamiliar ones, such as anger, resentment, almost debilitating uncertainty and fear.

All of this has been laced with unexpected and amazing moments of joy and light, too. Attending two different weddings in August brought out this juxtaposition beautifully: I couldn’t have been more excited to watch my friends marry the loves of their lives or more heartbroken that it wouldn’t be my reality anytime soon, like I thought it would be.

Was clearly feeling green, based on the dresses I wore to these weddings…

The fog caused by the intensity of those emotions is starting to clear now, and I can see all the amazing things I have going for me. My new job as a teacher has been incredibly fulfilling and also completes one of my 30 before 30 goals! The friends I left behind have not forgotten about me, at least based on the fact that I was just invited to a murder mystery party. I’ve been seeing my parents more often, and living where I do now has opened up possibilities to see and experience things I wouldn’t have been able to while living in my old hometown.

I don’t think I’ve yet reached a place where I can list out all the lessons I’ve learned, but I do know a couple of things. The first being that I have the best family a person could ask for. They’ve supported me emotionally, physically, and financially, and I will never take their unwavering support for granted.

Second, there is nothing I cannot survive. That might sound arrogant to some, but with everything I have gone through now and in my life in general, I have developed a faith in my own ability to weather any storm. I’m obviously hoping for a life with no major tragedies or the like, but if those eventually find me, I will make it through.

To keep going when everything feels too much is not pretty. It’s not Instagrammable, it’s not even something the realities of which you share with the people closest to you.  But it is something both you and I are capable of. So to answer my own title question:

Does anyone know how to start over at 28?

No, they don’t. Neither do I, but here I am, doing it anyway.  

– All my love, Ansku

PS: I cried while writing this post. I clearly still have a long road of healing ahead.