Six years have passed in Vienna and I still don't know if I've arrived.

I said before that in recent years I have often felt like there was too much going on around and inside me. That is probably why I am still so active in creating, writing and this whole online journaling thing. Now that it has been a year since I started, it’s good to look back and see how much has changed since.

I also started saving my memories from my phone, sorting through the pictures and copying them out. The gallery was a bit chaotic, but I found these in the process. Normally they don’t fit into my general blog topics, but now I noticed that I automatically started looking for a story in them. There is no big concept behind it, you can’t say that it is a carefully constructed visual narrative. This is the non conscious part of the project. Pictures that were important for some reason and this random connection felt closer to me, than everything being perfect or immediately, self-explanatory.

This will be a little flashback to Year One. Don't expect a lot of explanation, it will be more of a snapshot of how I see this period now.

This year marks 6 years since I moved to Vienna. Sometimes it feels like a long time, sometimes its just a moment. I’ve been living abroad for ages, but I’ve never been anywhere for this long. Which is funny, considering that I thought you could actually get somewhere in that amount of time. So not only physically, but also mentally. That one day, beyond the stable social network, I will answer for myself why I stayed here for so long, why I didn’t move on, or why I didn’t go straight back, but that’s still a work in progress.

I’ve lived in America and Malta before. Each gave me something different. Mainly excitement, spontaneity, lots of stories and the feeling that anything can really happen. As a Budapester, I think I’m used to the fact that life, although chaotic most of the time, is still vibrant and very alive. Vienna is different for me, or maybe by the time I got to Vienna, at the end of the covid wave, I became different. It's less loud, less impulsive, but in return I experienced something that I didn't really get anywhere else, and that's safety.

This is also very far from perfect, I wouldn't call it fairytale-like at all, but it's a balance in which one starts to think long-term. I can always bring this up as a good reason.

In the meantime, there is someone who has meant a lot to me over the past 10 years. I have been a partner, a best friend, a sworn enemy, and the only family, far from everything and everyone. We have seen each other in many ways over the years. Sometimes we have moved on together, sometimes separately, but one thing does not change, and that means that if something goes wrong, you can count on the other.

We cannot say that we have had easy years, these last ones have been quite intense emotionally for me. My grandmother died, who, as many of you already know, was also one of my best friends. There have been personal disappointments, misunderstood situations, ‘friendships’ that ultimately had to be learned from. Abroad, I think the desire for connection has sometimes been louder than my intuition. People are trying to find community, to build a home, and sometimes they trust the wrong people.

I used to tend to see these as injustices, but now I try to see them as stories that will teach me something. I have been hurt and confused by many, and I would be lying if I said I understood why people do what they do. But I know that sometimes it is enough to go through certain situations, even if we think it is unjustified. I would like to say that I am convinced, that a lot of events were unnecessary or could have been avoided, but then it would turn out that I’m not far enough on the path to enlightenment.

Meanwhile, the Hungarian thread lurks in the background. The events of the past period, the scenes that have been refined from constant tension to constant movie theater, the surprising feeling that things are happening… Okay, nothing grows overnight, but there is non-stop movement. At such times, a person inevitably thinks. Not only about where they live, but also about what kind of life they want for themselves in the long term. In what environment they want to exist, create, connect with others. You don't have to give up your principles for the sake of comfort, you don't have to search in places that you question in the meantime. Although perhaps that's not the point, but rather that a person is able to find meaning, beauty and real connections even in those times when the overall picture is not clear.

If someone had told me a year ago that I would be writing these lines now, I would probably view the whole thing as a completely different person. Since then, almost everything around me has changed. People, relationships, priorities. There have been losses, disappointments, and times when I just tried to move forward day by day. This is a much, much better place now. In fact, I can say that for the first time I feel closer to the life I would like to have. It’s okay that I don’t see the end or the exact direction, that’s more than enough for now.

Thank you for being here with me for the first season, and here’s to the second act.

Ivett