While I was at work today I ran across a website of pictures of London. Places I had been and places I did not get to. I realized, for the first time, that I miss London. Not only because I miss C███████ and that is where she is, but I miss the city itself.
While I was in London I did not really miss the US, I missed people that where here, but not being here. Now that I am home I miss London. Strange, I bitched about London while I was there. To the quote by Samuel Johnson:
“A man who is tired of London is tired of Life.”
I used to add, ‘yes, but Sam Johnson had money—if you don’t have money you can’t do anything in London.’ And I did not have much money while I was there, in fact I left early because I ran out of money.
I also looked at pictures of other places, Germany, Italy and France mostly. I realized that I would love to live in any of these places—ex-patriot syndrome I guess, but I would love to live there (thought Italy has to be on the top. Umbria or Tuscany!) Thinking about it, I realized that one of the things that makes London special is that it was the first time I lived ‘in’ a city, where I could walk or take public transportation anywhere I needed to go—and most places I wanted to go. Another thing that makes London stand out is that no matter how long I could live there it would never lose it’s foreignness for me. Cities in the US will always be more familiar than London, even if I have never been there.
I live in DC now, but I don’t know anyone in DC, and there is so much to do around me—but nothing to do alone. It’s hard to meet people, I have never met people well. I will talk your ear off if I know you but I won’t say hello unless you approach me if I don’t. The extrovert hiding behind the shy, embarrassed introvert. Most of the people I know either live outside the city and never come it, or don’t live anywhere near DC. I need to meet more people here, but have not figured out how to do it. I don’t even know anyone in my apartment building.
Anyway, I am going to stop ranting now… this whole thing is somewhere short of intelligible, but not quite a stream of consciousness.