London Story Pt. 2 - "There's a world I've always known, somewhere far away from home"
After I had everything that I had brought with me piled inside of my room, I sat on the edge of my questionable looking single bed and I took a second to soak up where I would now be living. It really only did take a second since the room was tiny by my standards. Extremely tiny. And in my opinion, gross.
There was one window that had the greenest of all green curtains. Lime green. And the window was one of those odd windows that you had to pull forward on to open, rather than lift up or swing out, which didn't leave me an option of smoking inside of my room. I knew it was forbidden to smoke inside my room, but I thought if my window permitted me, I'd at least be able to sneak a couple when it was raining. Not so much.
My bed was a tiny little single bed with a single spring mattress. I was afraid of it. Who else had laid on this thing? Who was with them when they laid on it? Gross. Gross, gross, gross. It was pushed in the corner underneath my green window with the bedside table next to it. I had a not-so-matching purple chair that seemed extremely random that sat next to my desk which took up the majority of my wall. My wardrobe was connected to my desk, and those were really the only two things that I liked in my room.
From the wardrobe was the en suite bathroom with the infamous lime green rubber floor. I must also mention that this particular rubber floor did not have a drain for any excess water that would spill out from my shower. Instead it would just sit there and take about three days to completely air dry. I hated the rubber floor and would always hate the rubber floor, right up until I left. My mirror took up the entire wall behind my sink and my shower, and it was oh so very strange in the early days to shower and be able to watch myself while I cleansed head to toe. I would eventually get used to it though and found it quite handy to have a full mirror with me in the shower (I know; dirty).
After I quickly scanned my room, I decided to jump head first into cleaning my new space and setting up everything I had brought with me. Sure, I smelled really badly of airplane and was dead beat exhausted, but I figured once it was done, it was done and I could crash on my germ-free and in fumigated mattress.
It was a much more daunting task than I had previously thought. All of the dusting, the hoovering, scrubbing, wiping, and then taking my febreeze bottle and dousing everything to try and get that old, unused, student smell out of there. Not only that, I was battling these enormous flying mosquitos that were absolutely harmless but creeped me out and sent shudders straight up my back. It did all get finished though and I did feel a lot better knowing that I had made my first tiny steps to living out on my own.
All of the international students had arrived four days before all of the other UK students so we could get a headstart in learning our surroundings and settling in a bit.
I think I needed more than four days.
On my second night, I had my first of many emotional break downs alone in my room while reading the first email that Momma had sent to me.
As I read it, I could hear her voice inside my head, as if she was standing right next to me and reading it aloud. I missed her already. Her words went straight through me and I couldn't help but cry my eyes out with every word that I read. Where was she? How come she wasn't here with me? Who said that parents should stop taking their kids to school? Couldn't it be like pre-school again when they would walk us to our class, meet our teacher, then kneel down on the floor to get to our eye level, put their hands on our shoulders, tell us that everything would be fine and kiss us on the forehead?
I wanted that. I wouldn't be embarrassed that she was with me. It could work. I'd make it work.
But she wasn't there. It was just me...in my room....alone. Completely alone.
Needless to say, it wasn't a good first couple of days. I was lost, literally and figuratively, I didn't know where the hell I was, the bus system was one of the most frightening things I had to force myself to overcome, I didn't have any food other than what the uni was providing for me and these disgusting chocolate chip muffins I bought from my very first Asda trip and basically caving into the pressure of my new life.
I needed to get out. I needed to not be around uni officials. They were so annoying and to a certain point, patronizing. I knew that they wanted to help us and were only doing things to try and help us, but it seemed like the more they tried to help, the more incompetent I felt. It quickly got to the point where I wanted to just shout at them, "you know what? Don't worry about it. I'll figure it out myself, thanks."
I emailed the one person I knew I could talk to and wouldn't talk back to me as if I was walking around with half a brain. I emailed Ash.
We decided to meet up on the same day that the rest of the UK students were moving into halls, outside of Earl's Court station. It was my first mission outside of the uni walls and using public transportation on my own. I was ready for it though. I asked the security guard how to get to Earl's Court without using any buses, since I was still really scared of them. I just wanted to get to the tube station. Once I was on the tube, I'd be fine. I could figure it out from there.
I left two hours early because I was sure I'd get lost. And If by some miracle I didn't get lost, I'd just hang out in some local restaurant near Earl's Court until it was time for us to meet up.
Good thing I did leave early. I don't know how I managed it, but I was lost in Putney for a good long time until I finally made it to the Putney train station. I ended up going in a giant circle and taking one of the most complicated routes getting into Central, I would learn once I got over my fear of buses. I used up the entire two hours and met Ash right on time.
We went to Nando's for lunch and spent the rest of the day walking around the city.
The city. The glorious city. The city that looked familar to me, that I had been dreaming about and obsessing about since I had left. My city.
We got lost in our conversation, lost tracked of time and somewhat lost in the city. I had no idea how we ended up sitting on a step outside of these flats. We were just there, with my aching feet and laughing at this old woman who didn't like the idea of us plopping down on their stairs.
It's crazy how easy you can get along with some people in the world. It's unexplainable and there's really no reason as to why you get along so well, you just do. It's a comfort that I needed and didn't want to let go of. I knew things weren't the same between Ash and I, but a lot of things felt the same and were the same. He still looked the same. He still smelled the same. He still made me laugh the same way that he was so damn good at. I still kinda...sorta...felt the same.
But no! I wasn't going to travel that road again. Even though some things were the same, a lot of things had also changed and I needed to accept and acknowledge that. We were different. Things were different now.
Oh my, how things were different.