Do you ever criticise yourself more than you should? How you're not doing enough, how you've lost your mojo, how you have zero motivation to do what you love?
Since I moved to Catania, I've being doing just that. CiaraSwalsh has suffered a great amount as my motivation levels plummeted, sitting at my blank laptop screen was the last thing I wanted to do and I was punishing myself for just that.
I know it's normal to go through a slump but as I brought myself back down to reality and analysed this situation I found myself in, I could clearly see why blogging was the last thing on my mind.
I just moved to a new city, alone, to a place I had never visited and somewhere completely different to any of my Italian experiences -it's true the north and the south might as well be different countries.
I just started a new job teaching in a secondary school, I have 24 classes to teach so that's a lot of preparation.
Being here a month I am still trying to find my bearings, like I said above, Sicily is so different to the rest of Italy, nothing like I've ever experienced, so trying to understand the way of life here has been quite daunting.
I'm not on Erasmus so meeting people has been quite a struggle, I'm still searching for that close group of friends like I had in Bologna.
Moving away from home by yourself is quite difficult, when I moved to Bologna I had a small network of people from my Italian class there, here I came with nobody so it's hard to find someone who understands the struggles of cultural differences.
All of these combined made me forget about blogging, I kept up my Instagram because it is the one thing I love to be creative on, without writing long detailed blogposts. You may be thinking, but sure don't you have an Italian boyfriend, it can't be that bad? Well the answer is yes I do have one but to even see him I have to get on an aeroplane, Italy is bigger than you think, and if not I would have to get a train for about 12 hours- Not worth it! We were only a 2 hour train ride apart when I lived in Bologna so I feel the distance still.
This isn't a 'feel sorry for me post' but it's just the reality of moving to a completely new place all by yourself. I'll never try to sugarcoat anything for you.
However of course there are good points to making the move, my housemates are just gems, my job is just amazing and highly rewarding, my apartment is so central and stunning, and being able to speak Italian to the locals is amazing.
I believe everybody reaches a slump in their creativity once in a while but as I love CiaraSwalsh and everything I have done to grow it I will always do what it takes to get my motivation back. I shouldn't have been so hard on myself expecting everything to be peachy perfect from the get go.
I know I will be settled in in no time but it's just taking so much longer than I had ever expected. CiaraSwalsh is going nowhere, and I am looking forward to producing so much more content for you!
Stay real,
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