While I was in London I wrote a long journal entry about all the feelings associated with being back in London, but I never got around to posting it. So here’s the short version: I miss London. I hated it when I first showed up in London in 2001—my relationship was on the rocks and I was alone. I don’t make friends easily and for the first few months I kept totally to myself. I found every reason I could to hate London; the people were rude, the streets dirty, the weather bad. I walked around quite a bit but never saw the beauty of the city because of my emotions.
All that changed over time and by the time I left London I had made it my home. I didn’t want to leave, I tried everything I could to find a way to stay but I could not find a job and had no money to stay in school. I met a lot of people in London and made some good friends and it was painful to leave. It did not feel like coming home when I came back to America. It felt like leaving home.
Last week when I stepped off the plane at Heathrow it felt like coming home. The accent of the announcer, the gray sky and rain, the smell of the tube, even “mind the gap” made it feel like home.
Seeing C███████ again was great. Seeing Liana was a blast, even getting pissed with the guys from the office was great. I spent £10 to take a cab from my hotel up to Islington to get food from the Barbican Kabob Center just like when I lived in London. It was totally worth it.
I still think that of all the places I have been London is the living city I would most like to in right now. Singapore is nice but I don’t think I could live there for a long time. I would like to live in Paris or in Tuscany one day but now, while I am still young and working London is the place I want to be.