a look-back

I'm about to attempt something I've been avoiding for awhile-- try to put into words how I feel about our time in England. To try answer that excellent, but difficult question, "So how was it?"  It's hard to try to confine such a big experience to words on a screen, and even if I chose the right words, I know that I will mostly not be understood.  Being misunderstood is hard for me, so this takes some courage.  I know that God gave me this experience so that I can share it, though, so it is worth the risk of being misunderstood in order to try to share this experience with you all.  I love you all, and thanks for reading.

5 months ago... 

First I was like...

I had just spent a week babysitting while Tim was in London without me, and I was starting my finals week. I had anxiety about leaving my dogs.  I was feeling incredibly grateful for all of my wonderful friends, yet at the same time feeling (what I call) "socially overwhelmed." I was anxious to get away and take a break. No one would expect anything of me in England.  I could hide in a hotel room and read books all day.  But who would I talk to?  Would Tim's coworkers like me?  I was waffling back and forth between "I can't wait to get out of here" and "I'm not ready to go yet!"

4 months ago...

I had been in England for about almost a month.  I was over the initial adjustment, and starting to feel more settled.  I had figured out the trains and the underground, but buses baffled me. (They still do.  I was just reading in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when Arthur Weasley wanted to ask the Grangers how bus stops work.  Mr. Weasley--they confound even Muggles...) I was feeling very homesick--a relatively new feeling for me, actually, since I don't tend to get homesick. 

I had a great talk with my cousin, Ariel, that was so good for me.  She understood my feeling and what I was going through.  I was really starting to like England, but really missing my dogs.  I was counting the days until I came home, to people who knew me and liked me.  My consolation was checking the weather back home :)

3 months ago...

My sister Kelly had come and gone, and we had enjoyed our Grand Adventure together.  While our time in Germany and Switzerland were so much fun, it was nice to get back to England because it felt more like "home."  Probably mostly due to the fact that they speak English.  My parents were visiting, and (as best I can identify) this is when I had a kind of "turning point."  I had been chatting on Facebook with a good friend back home about how homesick I was.  I realized that I wasn't happy in England, because I didn't want to let myself be happy.  It felt disloyal to my friends (and, let's be honest--my dogs) that I could live a happy life without them.  I realized God had put me there (indubitably... there's no way it would have happened if God hadn't made it happen), and that I needed to live fully where He had me.  

Also, when making our way around the city, Dad made some comment about how I had really seemed to figure out the transport system and knew my way around.  I realized that was true, and that I was more settled than I thought.  I am so glad that my parent were able to come and visit and to experience my life there with me.  I've realized that there were parts of me that grew while I was over there, and most of my friends back home have missed that.  But my parents where there and they saw it. What a blessing.

2 months ago...

Then I was like...

I was facing my last weekend in London.  I had purchased most of the souvenirs I needed to get, and it was up to me to decide how I wanted to spend my last few days.  I had already seen most of the sites I wanted to (or had grown so tired of tourists that I didn't want to face another museum).  I was ready to go home, but maybe not ready to leave. Tim and I had built a life in England.  Yes, it was a "real life" because we were living it, weren't we?  It wasn't necessarily sustainable, but it had been our life for 3 months.  Our life.  I was starting to realize how much I value having my own life, and living on my terms.  At some point in the last 6.5 years, I have become a people pleaser, and almost feel like a slave to everyone's expectations of me.  Life in England was relatively expectation free, and we LOVED it.  Mostly.  But it was also kind of shallow.  When you're living your life only the way you want, and you don't really worry about what someone else wants, life feels kind of empty.  I was excited to get home and live a life of meaning again, but how to balance that so that I don't feel "owned" by everyone else?

1 month ago...

I had been home for 4 weeks, and Tim had just come home!  Like Tim says "being home feels surprisingly normal."  You would think that after living somewhere else, home would feel somehow different, kind of like it didn't "fit" anymore.  But I settled right back into my house.  Yes, Sapphire was here and that was different from living with Tim, but I just started sitting in the chairs I would usually sit in, driving wasn't a big adjustment at all, and my interactions with the dogs were exactly like they had been.  I was reveling in the rich blessings of my life here, and loving it.  

But I struggled with how to talk about my time in England.  I was surprised at how many people didn't ask me to tell them about it.  And when I did try to talk about it, people seemed unengaged.  I realized that while I had 3 months of life to tell them about, they also had 3 month of their lives to catch me up on.  I have fantastic friends, but it is a hard thing when you realize that each of you changed and grown (even if it was just a little) while you are apart, and now there are new parts to each other that you may never understand.  I'm not saying I shouldn't have left, or that it wasn't good for all of us.  I'm just saying, there's a price, I guess.

Also worth noting: at this point I was realizing probably the biggest change in me.  I had become much more independent.  Spending so much time on my own in England, and finding my way around one of the biggest cities in the world, I realized that there are EVEN MORE things I can do for myself.  Living at home without my husband for a month gave me plenty of opportunities to assert my new-found independence.  Like fixing the sink.  And jumping two cars.  And monitoring the oil and tire pressure.  I'm pretty sure if Sapphire heard me say "We can do this! We are independent women!" one more time she would slap me.

Now...

For most of my time in England, I thought "This is fine, but I wouldn't want to live here."  Now that I am home, I keep thinking "Let's go back..."  Yesterday I was working on the enormous task of entering all of our receipts from the last 5 months into Quicken, and reliving our trip in many respects.  Every time I entered a receipt for Shake Shack, I would think "Awww...Shake Shack!"  But it was also good to enter the receipt for Boots where I had to walk all the way back (ok, it was a half-mile away, so not terrible) and exchange the cough medicine I bought because he gave me the wrong kind.  There were yucky moments, too.  

But I think the reason I keep wanting to go back is to keep it real.  Sometimes it feels like it was all a dream.  Did that really happen?  My friends here weren't there, and I think that's part of why it's hard to engage them in conversations about it-- it is not real to them.  And that's hard.  But life here is good-- so good.  My first week back, my friend Mindy Hadley and I watch the season finale to Dancing With The Stars and tried Taco John's new Flammin' Hot Cheeto Burrito. And I said to her "London has a lot of cool stuff, but nothing as exciting as watching DTWS and eating TJ's with you."  I went to the playground with my friends Amy and Kari and their kids, and it was so much better than any of the beautiful parks in London.

So that's it.  I didn't answer the question "how was it?"  There are no words.  Not because it was so fantastic, necessarily, but because it was 3 months of my life.  Three months of growing and changing and struggling, and loving my life and hating it all at once.  Of being so grateful to be away, yet intensely missing my home back here.  I think the only appropriate way to handle all the thoughts and feelings is gratitude.  I am so grateful that God gave me that opportunity and time (He knows what we need, and is working to provide it even before we know we need it), and I am so grateful for the beautiful life He has given me here.