A Ramble On My Ramblings…

Today, for the first time since I started writing this blog almost a year ago, I decided to go back to the beginning and read it start to finish. In the tradition of how it all began as sleep deprived ramblings, I thought today would be a good day to reflect. I don’t know why I’ve never gone back to the start of the story, I guess if I am completely honest a part of me was a little scared to remember. I, of course, still have all the memories of the last year in my mind, but there’s something about reading the words, feeling all the feelings I felt when I chose to record those thoughts in this blog, that scared me.

 
I have said from day one this blog was never set up for any purpose rather than an outlet for my rambling thoughts and hopefully, possibly a way to create a bit of awareness through said rambling thoughts. I have been utterly surprised and unbelievably humbled by how many people have read my words and so moved by those who have used it to help spread awareness in their own ways. I still just see it as being a bit of a disjointed collection of sleep deprived rants and streams of consciousness so I am so touched to find out that it has been used in so many productive ways by dear friends and even the odd stranger to spread the message that we are all human beings and we all deserve to be treated as such.

 
The last few weeks I have been back in Scotland doing a job which requires meeting a lot of new people and the question of what I do with my life has come up so many times. This is the longest time I’ve been back in the UK this year and I have, along with almost everyone I know, been waiting for the last year to really catch up with me. The response, “that sounds… eh… difficult,” has come up so many times over the last few weeks and although I have tried to shrug it off with smiles in an attempt not to completely kill casual light conversation – yes, they are right, it has been difficult.

 
I will be back in Greece in a week, walking back into the ever changing, ever more difficult situation there. I do now have other reasons to be in Greece than when I first arrived there, I have my own personal reasons, but at the heart of it all is still that I am in a position where I can help and I want to help those that Europe turned their backs on. We are all human beings, we all deserve basic human rights, basic human kindness and I still want to stand side by side in solidarity with those who are still being denied this even after all this time.

 
Reading back my own little personal story of my insignificant role in this entire crisis was… difficult. It’s very easy to stick everything in a box and lock it up in the back of your mind, but if you keep pushing more and more into that box eventually the lock will break. The old saying that you have to help yourself before you can help others is fundamental when finding yourself in such an overwhelming situation, and I think it’s very easy to forget that doesn’t just mean looking after yourself physically, but looking after yourself mentally.

 
This last year seen so many every day people put in positions they were completely untrained and under-prepared for. The benefit of the grass roots movements responding to the humanitarian crisis was that people were treated as people and their needs could be met on a human level without bureaucracy. The issue with grass roots movements was that the majority of those on the ground on the front line had never had any training on how to cope with the trauma that surrounded them. It didn’t matter if you spent a day, a week, a month or a year in Greece or Calais or anywhere on the route, it changed you and that affect is lasting.

 
I have been extremely lucky and have the most incredible solidarity support network and friends who know when I want to speak, when I want to cry, when I want to laugh or when I just want silence. But I worry that not everyone who stepped into this situation has this. If there are any fellow volunteers out there reading this, please know we all have difficult days, there is nothing wrong with not being OK about everything, you don’t have to always shrug it off, what has happened over the last year is so far from OK, witnessing that will undoubtedly have an affect and there is nothing wrong with asking for help when you need it. In reading back all the entries in this blog I can recognise the days when I was definitely not OK.

 
At this point last year, I was doing exactly what I’m doing today. I had just finished my August festival contract and was wrapped up in a blanket treating my exhaustion with chocolate and Netflix. But last year, I would never have just had a conversation with my boyfriend about the 1300 refugees trapped on the island of Kos as if it was just any old conversation because now, that is just my every day. At this point last year I was naive, I had no idea that I was just about to read a Daily Mail article that would make me so angry that I’d book a last minute flight to the island of Kos to see what was going on with my own eyes, to try and do anything I could to be useful to support the locals in supporting the hundreds of refugees arriving every day. Last year, I had no idea what the year ahead would hold, a year I will never forget.

 
Looking back on it all, reading all my thoughts and rambles makes it clear to me that I am very different from who I was at this point last year, but not in some kind of gap yah cliche of an OMG life changing experience. I’m still me, I’m just a me that see’s the world in a different light.

 
I still can’t believe that what is happening in Greece is still happening. On a global scale I can’t believe all the horrors are still continuing.

 
We are still very much living in a time of crisis, but it is not a Refugee Crisis. It is a crisis of humanity.

 
Nothing gets better, it all just keeps getting worse but the only thing we can do is be better.

 

 

I hope next year I can read back on words documenting a change for the better and that I can shed a few more tears of happiness than sadness, in a world where we have stopped hating and started helping. I can only hope…

 
Thank you to everyone who has ever read any of my ramblings. I can’t describe how much your support and love means and I’ll endeavour to keep documenting my nonsensical thoughts for as long as I can. Thank you.