I watched Brooklyn last night. Like the book (I love Colm Tóibín, as a man and as a writer), it struck a chord with me. I carry a lot of regret about my first year in Canada as a proper immigrant. Perhaps because I had lived in Canada before, I expected to just settle and find myself easily here. But I didn't, and I lost it a lot in that first year. It's an impossible to express feeling of loneliness, when you find yourself permanently severed from home. And it's even more complicated when you've done that to yourself of your own volition, and feel that you're not supposed to be feeling the homesickness you are.

People move so often now, and getting home is so easy, and communicating with home easy too, that we tend to think it's just the norm of modern life. It would be stranger now to only know people from the place you're from yourself. But it's still no easier to leave it all behind, (and you are always leaving it behind, no matter how much Facetime there is). I dunno, I think I'll always think moving here on my own was the hardest and biggest accomplishment of my life. And when people tell me something is going to be a challenge, I don't disbelieve them, but I also think I've done something so hard and it was grand in the end. And whether that's realistic or not, it gives me courage.

This '90's nostalgia in fashion has me thinking a lot about the years when I first lived these looks in Dublin. I'm pretty sure I had the River Island / Jigsaw / Temple Bar second-hand jeans version of this look when I was at Trinity. So much has and hasn't changed. I still listen to Monster occasionally. I've reached that age where nostalgia is a favourite cardigan and some nights you pull it on over your PJs. I could buy this look brand new and it would still feel that way, as if I just reached into my closet from then. And in my mind, it'd all be the same as well as different. And I'd be the same as well as different too.

Products: Isabel Marant blouse from Matches | Santal 33 from Le Labo | Rag & Bone jeans from The Outnet | Twin Pearl Studs Earrings from Satomi Kawakita | Small Bayswater Satchel from Mulberry | Gamine Cardigan from La Garconne | Gianvito Rossi flats from Net-a-Porter