My Mumbling Thoughts

If I could have it my way, I'd split myself into two halves and part of me would always be in London, and the other half would always be at home with Momma and Mel. When I'm here amongst all of the foreign accents and living out the rainy days, part of me always longs to be back home in Virginia; and when I'm back home where life moves slower and I have all of my American luxuries, part of me aches to be back here in London.

It seems like I have blurred the lines between here and home these days, and drift in out of both worlds whenever I get a quiet moment to myself. Sometimes I can hear Momma yelling at me to come and clean the kitchen while I lay upstairs in my bed watching TV under the covers with Mel next to me knitting something, for someone that never really takes any shape. For a couple of minutes I'm back home and when I snap out of it and see that I'm really just sitting in my room staring out of my bedroom window onto the Digby lawn, I get a small sinking feeling and wish to not be here anymore. I am tired. With each passing day I'm getting increasingly tired of this, this uni scene, this uni life, this goddamned uni bubble.

Fuck it all to hell, is what I usually think to myself and want to just lock my room and never let anyone else in. Go away! Please go the fuck away!

Uni life can't be like this for other people. I know it's not, because they don't have the same worries that I do, the same stresses that I've been dealing with ever since my first year. International students have it much harder and I can't believe that Trish and I are one of the few brave ones that have stuck it out for this long. No wonder a good majority of other international students only stay for a semester. What were we thinking?! Live in London? FOR THREE FUCKING YEARS?! ARE WE CRAZY?!

Yes. Yes we are. And the prices we have to pay will constantly be following us until our deaths. Why? Because going to university overseas for the full three years is motherfucking expensive.

Of course I knew this when I signed up for it, but my eyes were temporarily blinded by personal happiness and dreaming about all of the new experiences that I was going to have and living in one of the greatest cities in the world, and nobody - NOBODY - was going to take that from me.

Now I'm nearing the end, and while I don't regret a single thing (this is an experience that nobody can take away), I'm dragging my feet, I'm slowing down big time, I'm ready to fall over, collapse and pray that someone can carry me the rest of the way. There are other prices that I've paid without dollar or pound signs in front of numbers, and it appears that you will run out of energy at some point and everything will catch up to you in the end.

I need a pick-me-up quickly. I need a jolt, a fire lit under my ass, a kick up the backside and a good talkin' to. I can feel myself starting to slide into that dark place that lurks in the back of my mind, that place that's so alluring and tempting to visit whenever London doesn't see any sun for a few days and all I hear is each individual rain drop fall down from the grey skies.

Just sit inside, don't shower for three days and feel sorry for yourself. Do it! It's fun. You know how it's done; you've done it so many times before. Now go!

I don't know what it is. It's probably not just one thing. It's probably a culmination of many small things that have all banded together to make one, big Sammi Sad Ball and now it sits in the middle of my chest. I just don't feel like I've caught a break yet to be honest. I got a job, but it's a load of crap and seems to be slightly illegal, so Trish and I are quitting on Thursday. Nothing else is really happening because I don't have any money to do anything, and my debts are increasing right before my eyes. I miss my friends. God, do I miss my friends. I know I have the babies and Trish here with me, but there's still a part of me that wishes so much for Helen and Zoe to be here. I'm sad about our group falling apart, and even more sad because if I wanted to, I could put it back together with one conversation between me and Carlene. But I won't, because I'm stubborn and have too much pride to go and say, "hey, let's forget about it." And I'm frustrated. I'm getting more and more frustrated just waiting around for something to happen. Anything! I want something BIG, HUGE, MONUMENTAL to happen. I want a good job, I want to meet someone, I want to land on something fantastic that no longer leaves me feeling like I'm in this huge holding pattern, barely making ends meet. I want to go out, go crazy, swing my hair all over my face and forget that any of this is real. I don't want to sit in my room and dream about being at home anymore.

So I'm going home.

It has been nearly a year and a half since I've properly been back. I know I went back for Christmas, but I was only there for two weeks and I barely remember the break. I've been gone for ages. I feel like I've forgotten me. I used to be someone that knew what she wanted every single day when I woke up. Now when I wake up I just wish for the day to already be over. And while Thomas Wolfe has been quoted many times stating that "you can't go home again," clearly he never lived in London with non-existent funds that would forever and always leave him wondering why he was even here in the first place.

I'm looking forward to December 16th. All I have to do is make it to that day and I'll leave London once again to re-charge my batteries. I'll be back home for a whole month and I will drive my car, visit Mendy, eat at my favorite food joints, get new glasses, get a doctor's check-up and remember what I want every day when I wake up. I'll forget about this whole mess here for a little while and come back to be the girl with a little more fight in her who won't fall susceptible to the dangers of negative thinking.