"This maudlin career has come to an end, I don't want to be sad again"
It literally felt like everything was on pause for ten months, and the second we landed I pressed play again.
I picked up right where I left off. Nothing changed. Everything was exactly as I had left it. Completely untouched. There were hugs and excitement briefly when I'd first see people, but within minutes the novelty would quickly wear off and I easily slid back into London Living.
This is how it was meant to be. If I had never moved back to America, this is exactly where I would have left off, the story continued.
However, as my days have worn on, and I become more and more settled, I've begun to see the subtle changes in my surroundings, in my friends, and most importantly, in myself. I'm no longer a student that spends my days locked away in my room yearning for the brief London sunshine; rather I am a university graduate who is a full-time employee at an awesome company, and am simply a visitor in this city that I still consider to be my home.
It was a shock and hard realization when time carelessly slapped the past ten months in my face and I felt how much time has actually passed by me. I sat with Zoe in Lee House with all of its familiar smells and dirty reminders, and while we spent the better half of nine hours endlessly catching up, I felt my absence. While we reminisced about the good 'ol days, and things that have happened while we've been apart from each other, I noticed that I don't miss my old life as much as I thought I did. I don't miss being a poor uni student with essay deadlines looming, I don't miss the party scene, the drugs, the crazy nights out, the stress of lecturers, yadda, yadda, yadda. I don't miss the campus. I don't miss the drama. I don't miss the bubble.
I'm glad to be gone.
Of course I miss my friends and the time that we would spend together, and I miss the city with all of its tempting offerings, but I don't miss university life, and coming to that realization made me very sad.
I came back to my friend's flat that I'm crashing at, and had a bit of a cry the next day on Helen's shoulder (some things, I suppose, will never change). Why have I been gone for so long? Why have I missed all of these things? Why have I not been involved or around to help and be a continuous part in my friend's lives? Why don't I know all of the little day-to-day details, and how come I can't say things like, "oh! You remember that one day!" and have everyone instantly know what I'm talking about before I even finish the sentence? I don't make plans to go abroad with them overseas. I don't share three hour long conversations with them anymore. I only have a vague idea of their lives by what has been provided via the internet or our scattered chats over Skype.
Some things, I've learned, will never change. The level of comfort in my friendships allows me to arrive after a ten month long absence and slip into old routines that feel so natural it really is as if I never left in the first place. Other things, however, will change. I knew it was an inevitable possibility that I was going to have to deal with after arriving. I just didn't think it would surprise me as much as it did, or make me feel such a great loss. Things did not pause. They very much carried on just like they always do after my leaving.
It still feels like my city, though. London is just as captivating and vivacious as when I left it. The bathtubs are still so deep I have to focus on not slipping and injuring precious ladybits when I'm climbing out. The food still tastes like its been cooked on pans that are coated in a week's worth of grease. The sidewalks are still littered with random papers, empty bottles and odd characters of every nature. I still smile when listening to my iPod and watching the scenery change outside the bus window. My friends still make me laugh so hard I have to clench at my sides from the happy pains.
My friends are still my friends. It's the one thing I hope never changes in a city so rapid.