Preparing for the Journey Back

As I’m writing this, I’m officially leaving London tomorrow. It feels surreal. For the longest time, I haven’t been able to make anything of it. There’s a complete mix of emotions I’ve been having for a couple of weeks now—a pull between being ready and wanting to go home, to see my family and friends, and not wanting to leave the place I’ve called home for six months. It seems to change on a day to day basis. Sometimes I feel rather lonely, and other times I don’t think there’s anything in the world that can comfort me the way this city can. It’s a very odd reconciliation to make, but I also doubt I’m alone in these feelings.

During these last few days, in addition to realizing the complete lack of awareness I have for my own feelings, I’ve also found that time is just completely and utterly bizarre. I was cleaning out my closet and upon seeing it empty I began to remember what I was thinking and feeling as I was putting my clothes into it for the first time. How small it seemed. How quiet the room was. How I was equally as scared as I was giddy at the idea of being all alone in a city made of dreams. In a way, it feels like no time has passed at all. I can still see myself from six months ago dancing around this room like a ghost that appears too real. Those thoughts and feelings are still in me, still in the present. And yet I know they’re not. I know they’re behind me now. I know time has passed. I can feel that time has passed. I’m not the same and I’m better for it. But still, it’s hard not to reminisce about the beginning.

I don’t think it’s particularly hit me yet, if I’m being honest. The fact that I’ll really be gone. I have to be up to go to the airport in about six hours, but it doesn’t feel like I’m really leaving. I’ve gotten so used to it. What started as an adventure eventually became my life. Just life that I lived everyday. I always knew it would end, of course, but it can be hard to leave behind something you built so carefully over months and months. It’s also hard because this whole experience has truly been a dream come true. And I don’t think I’ve even processed how much of a dream come true it really was, even now.

At the same time, I have to admit that it’s not complete sadness that’s overtaking me. I am happy to be going home. But I’m just hopeful beyond anything that I’ll have the strength and the courage to make my life different when I get back. To let this experience truly change me, to be a constant inspiration—not a sad memory—but a hope for what my life can look like again some day in the future. I’m also not completely sad because, rather strangely, there’s this feeling I have within me that I know I’ll be back one day. For a week or a month or indefinitely, I’m not sure yet. 

But I don’t think I’ve seen the last of London, and that thought only makes me even more excited for the future. I’ve loved getting to know the city, but more so I love just knowing the city. Living here, existing here, walking the streets, seeing cool things every day. I truly don’t believe there’s any place like it (but then again I’m pretty biased). The city’s left its mark on me, as I knew it would. I just feel so unbelievably lucky and grateful to have been able to call this city home for nearly six months. I may not physically be in London anymore come tomorrow, but it will always live in my heart—and I couldn’t imagine trading that for the world.