My Mumbling Thoughts

Everyone can feel the end drawing near in the pit of their stomachs. It makes me sit up a little straighter, it makes my senses a little sharper and I wait on edge for the grand finale. Soon, all of this will be over. Soon, I won't have to worry about what this lecturer said about my essay, or what that lecturer thinks about my ideas for my final project. Soon, I'll go back to the way things were in Virginia and soon my life here in London will only be a story that I'll tell to people who've wondered where I've been for the past three years.

Soon.

But not yet.

At the current moment I'm mustering up enough energy to get me through the next couple of weeks, which I will inevitably be sat at Bridget clicking and clacking away at essays, proposals, chapters and character checklists. Finally I do believe I'm ready to start hacking away at the words that have been on constant repeat inside of my head for the past two months. Hopefully they'll be coherent enough for me to pass my final year and leave me feeling like I at least accomplished something semi-respectable while I've been here frittering time away as if I have nothing else better to do. It's a slow and tedious process, like squeezing jam out of those "simply made easy!" bottles, but I'm sure I'll get there in the end.

These days I'm more at ease with myself yet I don't think that I've fully realized that yep, I'm almost done with university. I try not to look more than three days ahead into the future, because looking any farther would surely make me sink back down into my self-loathing cave to never return. I'm looking forward to being done with all of this university nonsense, however, I'm sort of left standing with a dumb look on my face as to what I'm supposed to do after I'm finished.

I know I want to go home. I so desperately want to go back to Virginia. Whenever folks ask me here about my plans after university, for some reason I always say that I'm looking for internships, work placements (which I am looking and applying) and I wouldn't mind staying here for a while after the Student Life. I don't know why I tell them that, though. It's as if that answer is pre-recorded in my brain and the moment any variations of the question is asked, I spit out that automated response. And I don't really mean it.

Mostly I think it's just because that's what I say for conversational purposes, or maybe I think that's what people want to hear from me. And I don't want to tell them that I'm dying to go back home to my mother and my sister. Why leave the glamorous life of London to go back to the country life in Virginia?

Because deep down, y'all, I am a country girl. And the saying is so true: you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl.

I left my "simple life" that I thought was boring and dull, to move over three-thousand miles away to a city that I love, yet taught me that I'm not cut out for all of this. My relationship with London has slowly grown to the point where all of the things that I once loved, now really get on my nerves and drive me up the wall. The sirens, the masses of people, the cluttered buildings, the noise, the different "scenes", the traffic, the constant moving, the drinking, the pounding, the smoke, the dramas, the heartache, the struggling, the Everything. I just can't do it anymore. I'm not built to constantly be on the go. I'm not a Modern City Woman. I can only wear high heels for so long before I'm slipping into my flat shoes so I can walk without contorting my body into some kind of weird pretzel figure.

And I think part of me finds it difficult to accept that fact. Maybe I'm not a city girl. Maybe I belong back in the quiet space of the townhouse wearing American Eagle jeans, flip flops and a t-shirt. I'm a simple gal. I enjoy sweet tea at any time of day. Give me a front porch with a rocking chair and stray cats at my feet any day of the week and I am happy.

Oh, but how I so desperately wanted to live out my fantasy as the Modern City Woman. I wanted to wear the high-waisted skirts, the crisp, fitted blouses and black stilettos that would cause a crowd to separate and recognize that I was a force to be reckoned with. That would've been awesome. It would've been hot. It is what I thought I could be here in one of the greatest cities in the world.

There are so many reasons why I fit and mould into The City Life. There are fantastic things about being in a city that I love, appreciate and am enamored by. They are beautiful, historical and a perfect battle ground for people to show what they're really made of in today's society. But the reasons why I fit aren't good enough for me to stay. At least not right now.

I miss the drawl of a deep southern accent. I miss the cowboys. I miss the sticky air, the vast openness, the symphony of crickets and June bugs, the sunsets behind the townhouse, the mountains in the horizon, the dust that my feet kick up, the funny tan lines, the hot rain and the fact that it takes me at least forty minutes to drive to the nearest city (hello DC!).

I miss home.

I am torn and a strange hybrid of City mixed with Country. I can't seem to find the right balance between both lives, or I can't seem to choose which one I'd like to stick with for more than three years. I'm sure after I take a break from the City Life I'll be dying to come back. I am such a fickle creature and wish I could hurry up and make up my mind. All I know is that right now my heart is dying for some fried green tomatoes, a tall glass of cold lemonade and some folk music playing in the background.