As is the option, Facebook reminds you what you did on certain days x amount of years ago. The other day it brought up: this photo.

And a part of me was shocked by it, part reminiscent and part envious.

I was 21, and had been back from my first semester in Brazil (part of my year abroad) for about three days.

I flew from Florianópolis to São Paulo to Paris to London and remember getting off the layover plane in the UK very early in the morning, along with a cabin load of business people - the only other people crazy enough to get on a plane that early on a Sunday morning. They were all miserable, grumpy and wrapping themselves tighter into their jackets. Me? I screamed to myself: "FRESH AIRRRRR!!" Brazil could be SO humid.

Anyway, this was three Christmases ago.

Back at the end of 2013 all I had to worry about was submitting a chapter for my dissertation (which I finished the night before I went to Mexico a month later). I assumed I would 'figure life out' at some point before graduation.

I bought that Christmas jumper because some small business people at the time called Zoella and Fleur De Force were 'obsessing' over festive wear.

***

Fast forward three years and I don't recognise me. Physically and mentally.

I am so so grateful!

Grateful for the places I have been, my friends, my supportive family and the incredible opportunities I have been given. Grateful for the body I live in and the space I inhabit on this little planet.

***

I showed my friend this pic, and we got to reminiscing about where we were in 2013 and three years before that and three years before then too.

It dawned on me that ten Christmases ago my family and I had just moved back from Spain. That s*** cray! And again, never could my fourteen year old self have guessed I would be where I am today...

I couldn't predict it then and, to be completely honest, even now I couldn't predict what my life would look like one, three, five or ten years from now.

 

But that is the fun of it!

 

Don't you think life is just that much more thrilling and exciting when it's not played out for you!? When you take a detour or drive without a map!

For memory's sake, I am going to predict that Christmas 2019 I will have lived abroad a couple more times - which in 2013 I never thought I would do - I will have a Spaniel named Bubble (after the Absolutely Fabulous character). Taken a couple of big career leaps, taken out my belly piercing (the nose piercing I then got in 2014 and thought I would have for a while has now gone) and have a flat of my own in the UK. I'll throw in a Christmas ski trip in the Alps and made friends with a celebrity as well...

I can't wait to see how this pans out!

***

Questions I have for 2019:

1. Will I still be using all my other languages?
2. Will we ever have snow at Christmas again?
3. Will the Christmas Snapchat filter be the same?

 

Where do you think you will be ten years from now?

Han x

*What I love about this photo is: I'm not wearing red lipstick, but it covers my lips like lipstick would...