When the journey out becomes the journey within…

I have thought about this post for a long time. It marks the end of something big – the end of my time in London. England is a place that I will miss very much, and it is always a strange transition to leave something you love to come back to the people that you left behind and love in a very different, but stronger way. Spending the last few days with my family and friends has been equally refreshing and strange. How do you sum up something as enormous as a semester spent in the heart a world city, a place in which big things are always happening?

England has been like English major paradise. Everywhere you turned there was the house or the favorite pub of some famous author. A short walk down the street took us past theater after theater. Literature seemed so real. I was reminded of why I have chosen to study English Literature. I fell in love with it again, all the while exploring England, Scotland, Wales, France, and Germany.

But now I am back at school. Once again I live in College Town, USA. While in London I felt so independent, a part of the big world moving around us. As a student, I was in the minority among the business people, lawyers, politicians, shop keepers, actors, teachers, and working people of all kinds. But here, the college atmosphere is so overwhelming. There are students EVERYWHERE. Students who weren’t in London, who don’t understand what it was like to be a part of that city. After all that I saw and did this semester, am I still just another college student? Am I still just getting a fresh start out of high school, barely into the real world? College tends to corner off America’s young adults into a little pond where they feel as if they rule the sea – little do they know of the swirling tides of the ocean that surrounds them. But I know that there is so much more. I have seen a sliver of the great wide world with my own eyes! So where does that leave me? Where do I fit?

Many students who come back from study abroad have an overwhelming urge to dye their hair, pierce their nose, get a tattoo, or do something that will show outwardly that they are a different person. It is hard to put into words the way we view the world differently, and so it is tempting to create some outward sign. While I will refrain from the drastic measures listed above, I think the way I live my life outwardly will change because of how I have changed inwardly. At least I hope it does. Because I know a little bit more about the world, something has to be different.

What does this mean for me? Well, I’m not sure yet. I have just moved into my first real apartment (am I really still so young?), and I have long imagined what this would be like. But now that I am here, right after my semester in London, I am starting to think that it may look very different from what I had imagined. But I honestly don’t really know what that means either. I know that I want to eat healthier. I know that I want to find at least a little time to read for fun. I want to try to bake my own bread, and, if I am feeling super creative, make my own hair conditioner. Instead of a desk chair, I bough an exercise ball. I definitely want to explore the area more, get to know my environment here just as I did in London. But at the same time, I have responsibilities that I didn’t have in London. While I wish I could study, bake bread, go to meetings, and climb a mountain all in one day, I realize that I may be overreaching a little bit.

Essentially, this is all to say that London was spectacular. I deeply and sincerely hope to go back one day. Lillian Smith, however, tells us that…

“No journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.”

That is the leg of the journey that I am on now – and it is as worthy as the journey outward. I can no more say what this journey will bring than I could have said much about London before I was there. But if you, wonderful readers, wish to see what this will bring, I will gladly take you along with me. I had considered ending my blog, but I think that would do a terrible injustice to the complete journey. If you will have me, I will continue to share with you as I piece together my life in America. And who knows, you may even get a bread recipe or two!

Back along the Thames

However my life continues, images and whispers of London will be all around me, just like this print I brought home. It sits on my desk, a little window back to my English major paradise.