It just makes me ache and pine for that home I had there, where a piece of my heart still lives and calls for me to come claim it once again. Here's a snippet:
Sunday, September 23, 2007 (3 years ago....shit)
"I ventured out alone for the first time since I've been here. Granted, it was only for a ten minute walk from the South Kensington tube station to my residence hall on Manresa Rd. All the same, it liberated me. For the first time, I felt like London was home, or at least that little corner of Chelsea was home. My turf. My neighborhood. My....people. I had a pleasant skip in my step as I walked, tea in hand, by the white, pillared homes. Past couples holding hands, jolly older Englishmen with their bags of groceries from Waitrose, women walking their King Charles spaniels (I swear, it's the only breed in these parts), and bicyclest after bicyclest. There must have been something going on today with bicycles because everyone was on one.
It was such a beautiful day to just be walking, too. I couldn't wipe the smile from my face. I found myself wanting to smile at everyone I passed. The mother carefully lifting the stroller that held her sleeping child was happy to exchange a grin, as was the older woman out for a stroll. She seemed pleasantly surprised that I even made eye-contact, quite like the older gentleman back from shopping. His jovial ear-to-ear almost made me audibly giggle. And I found something else to love about this city: random acts of smiling. In parts of America, people don't bother to even make eye-contact, let alone smile. Maybe it's that old world charm that still exists in England, maybe it's my sheer joy at being in this fantastical land of Shakespeare and Elizabeth I and Hugh Grant, but I've found, especially on serene and beautiful Sunday afternoons, the people here are more than happy to share in your silent elation."
I want to go. I want to go now. I love it. Love, love, love, a feeling I've truly felt and put more and more stock in recently in my life, finally feeling it for another person. I feel quite certain I'm meant to head across the pond again, and not in some distant time, far-far-away, but in some time very soon indeed.
Reading the old journal entries put a lump in my throat and a fire in my belly. Time to fan the flames.
