The Five Stages Of Withdrawal.

As many of you that follow me on Twitter will know, this weekend I visited my favourite city (so far) - London.   To many, the fact that my favourite city is in Britain may sound silly, but living in Leicester, with John Lewis as it's main flagship store, just really doesn't compare.  In the 24 hours following my descent, I found myself going through distinctive stages* as I attempted to leave the four star hotel and shopping on Bond Street and arrive in the 'real world' where I noticed that every building seemed to be three storeys or less.

*These stages could also apply to leaving home, seeing someone for the last time etc etc

Stage One - Holding it all together.
Characteristics include

• Avoiding thinking of the said place for fear of tears.
• Desperately searching for something to distract you such as music or a film.  (I chose 500 Days Of Summer and the 'Britney/Brittany' episode of Glee)
• Calling someone just to ask them about their day.
• Eating everything edible that you have with you.  

Stage Two - Excited recall of events

Characteristics include:

• A sudden burst of happiness and excitement.
• Excessive storytelling and photo sharing.
• Trying to explain 'inside jokes' that were once hilarious but don't seem so much now.
• Complaining about the people on the train (I don't care if your daughter still has to pay £60 per hour for a room when you pay £120,000 for her school).
• Attempting to persuade others to go with you/ take you back.  

Stage Three - Welcome to the real world

Characteristics include:

• Arriving into a familiar place (ie. your bedroom) and realising that 'this is it'.
• Regretting your choice of university.
• Violently shaking a snowglobe of the place for around fifteen minutes.
• Mentally planning your next visit.
• Refusing to unpack
• Refusing to look at photos

Stage Four - Getting over it

Characteristics include:

• Waking up with bedhead.
• Deciding that you need to get out of the house and distract yourself.
• Meeting with friends to get back into a routine and to share stories.
• Shopping.  Lots of shopping. 
• Catching up with TV and websites.
• Tackling the huge backlog of emails and youtube subscriptions.
• Peeking at photos taken.

Stage Five - Do you remember when....?

Characteristics include:

• Posting photos on Facebook.
• Finally unpacking!
• Finding random receipts and leaflets everywhere.
• Realising that you are broke.
• Going back to your happy place.
• Time to plan the next visit!

Have you experienced any of this before?  Share!