London Reflections: Leaving Home

Hello all!

I know I had promised you a bunch of updates, and I am still hoping to write them. Don't worry, I want to share my stories of walking 74 miles to Canterbury, seeing royals, and finishing (!) my dissertation with you (probably more than you actually want to read them, as a matter of fact). But today, it is time for a post reflecting on this amazing year so those other ones will have to wait. 

In less than 24 hours my parents will be arriving at Heathrow airport. It will be the first time that I have seen them in nearly a year (okay, 11 months, but who's counting) so of course, I am incredibly excited! We are going to tour around the UK for 2 weeks together and I will get to show them all the places that have been so special to me! But their imminent arrival is also bringing up some rather mixed feelings that I was completely unprepared for. You see, when I meet them at Heathrow tomorrow, I am essentially leaving London. Sure we will be back for a few days at the end of the two weeks together before they head home and I head home via a two week tour of Central and Eastern Europe (that will be another blog post or two). But when we are back for those three days, I'm going to be exactly what I have been trying to avoid all year...I'm going to be...[cue ominous music] a tourist. Eek! I'm getting around it by saying that I will really be their tour guide, but I know that those three days will have a very different feel to them than the last year. So even though I'm not leaving the country for another two weeks and even though it will be nearly a month until I get home, I feel like I'm leaving tomorrow. And I have a lot of feelings about that.

A few months ago, I was feeling rather homesick and I wrote a post called "Home is...not London." I meant it at the time, I really did. But since then, I've realized I was wrong. Or maybe it would be better to say I was not wrong at the time, but the sentiment is no longer applicable.

You all know that I've been going to St. Martin in the Fields for church on Sundays and I think I have told you about the group of young adults (20s, 30s, +) called Open Circle (formerly Twirties) that I have been a part of and loved. About a month ago, one of the priests at St. Martin's, Katherine (who also helps with Open Circle), sent me an email asking when I was leaving. Bless her heart, she wanted to make sure I wouldn't leave without saying goodbye (as if I could have actually left St. Martin's without the long, drawn out goodbyes that took place last Sunday). And this email got me thinking. Thinking about leaving. And I realized how quickly the year had gone and how near the end of my time here was.

It was around that time that I realized something else. Something that I wasn't prepared for at all. I realized that I didn't really want to leave. I realized that even though I do want to go home and see my family and friends, I didn't want to leave my friends here and my St. Martin's family. And most startling of all, I realized that somewhere along the way, in between the classes and papers and exams and site seeing and friends and walking all over the English countryside, London had actually become home. So on September 21st, I'm not just going home...I'm leaving home too.

Perhaps you can imagine all the mixed feelings that realization brought (and those feelings haven't gone away). I'm excited and disappointed, happy and sad, nervous and more confident, and a bunch of other things I can't even identify, all at the same time. But perhaps, more than anything, I am reflective. So I want to share that with you.

I wasn't expecting this. It snuck up on me. I have been (literally) dreaming of home for so long, I didn't notice that this had become a home too. I didn't realize how hard it would be to leave. In fact, one night a few weeks ago, after a lovely evening celebrating a friend's birthday with some of the Open Circle gang, I came home and cried. I cried that I had to leave this place and these people. Even as I am excited to see my parents tomorrow and my friends back home in a few weeks, I'm sad.

I knew that some day, I would look back on this year and my experiences in London and all the problems would melt away. Either I would forget the roommate and computer and kitchen stuff, or it would fade into the background and what I would really remember would be the good times. I knew those issues would seem insignificant someday. That if I thought about them at all, I would be able to smile and see them as a time of growth. What I didn't realize is that that day would come even before I left London.

It has been a truly incredible year. Right up there with the best times of my life. St. Martins, New Years Eve in Parliament Square, Scotland and the Lake District, Royal sitings, the pilgrimage to Canterbury. These are things I will never forget. Experiences that have shaped who I am now. Because I'm not the same as that scared, relient-on-parents, kid that I was a year ago. I'm more self-sufficient. I'm more confident. I have a better understanding of different cultures and perspectives and world-views. And that is just some of the stuff that I got outside of the classroom. I won't bore you will all the things I learned in the classroom. I know myself better now, and I think I'm better for these changes.

I've been thinking a lot about what I'm looking forward to and what I'll miss. Most of all, I'm looking forward to seeing my parents and family and friends. I'm looking forward to full-size refrigerators, Skippy peanut butter, and gallons of milk. I'm looking forward to seeing my St. Barnabas family. I'm looking forward to mountains and water and boats. But I will miss a lot too. I think most of all I'll miss St. Martin's and Open Circle. As a matter of fact, I have told the Open Circle group that I blame them for the fact that leaving is so hard. It would have been a lot easier to leave if it weren't for them. I'll miss easy (if not always comfortable) public transportation. I'll miss being able to pop down to the store that is an approximately 30 second walk away to pick up milk. I'll miss the English accents and phrases (some of which I will bring back with me). I'll miss Parliament. I'll miss the freedom and confidence that comes with surviving and living and thriving in a foreign country. But I think that is the best thing about this entire year. Those things about London that are most important to me--the friends and the memories and the confidence that I gained--I won't lose them. And for that, I am very grateful.

Honestly, I'm feeling a lot of other things right now that I don't think I can even put into words. Maybe someday I will find the words to express how it feels to be both going home and leaving home at the same time. But for now, I want to say thank you. Thank you to all of you who have come on this adventure with me. Who have supported me and followed me here and on Facebook. Knowing that you care has meant the world to me. Thank you to my professors at F&M who gave me the knowledge and skills to make it through a year at LSE. Thank you to my parents who made my dreams come true. In so many ways I wouldn't be here without them. And thank you, London. Thank you for letting me in and teaching me. Thank you for making me a better, more complete, person. Thank you for surprising me everyday. And thank you for becoming home.