I can sum up exactly 85.7% of the conversations that I've had in the last three weeks right here, right now:
Person I Haven't Seen Or Heard From In Months: "OHMYGAHD! It's YOU! How was England?"
Moi: "It was so great, I really miss .."
P.I.H.S.O.H.F.I.M.: "Awww, yeah, I bet you do! Was it great? Aw, I bet it was so great!"
Moi: (Distracted by the montage of beautiful Oxford images in my head) "Yes ..Yes, it was .. (cue single tear). But how have you been! Tell me everything!"
P.I.H.S.O.H.F.I.M.: "Ha! Same old, same old. Nothing to tell, really! You know, I went to Oxford once, I think. Is that where Shakespeare was born?"
Moi: "No, but it's not far from there! It's a funny story; I went to Stratford-Upon-Avon, and there was this cow .."
P.I.H.S.O.H.F.I.M.: "Oh! Yes. Okay, I know what you're talking about. That reminds me of when I studied for a week in Germany."
Moi: "Oh. That's .. That's cool. So, how was your semester here?"
P.I.H.S.O.H.F.I.M.: "Wait, did you go to the Royal Wedding?"
Womp.
The most difficult thing about coming home is realizing that my journey has been a pretty private one. Nobody wants to hear about the quadrillion pages I read or the half a quadrillion pages I wrote. They want deets on what Harry smells like and if the food is really that bad. Unfortunately, since I only looked at Buckingham Palace and didn't break in, and mostly lived the life of a poor college student who shops at the marked down section of Tesco, I don't have the answers people want!
This isn't a bad thing.
It's the "OMG HOW WAS YOUR SUMMER EVEN THOUGH I DON'T CARE" phenomenon, just a few months early. I admit, sometimes, I feel very thirteen-year-old-misunderstood because I can't express the strange dichotomy of loving home but missing where/who/what/when/was at Oxford. It wasn't the food or the royals that shaped my time there (shocking, but true) -- it was missing a bus in London, counting out a pound in ten pence coins to buy tea at Coffee Republic, chatting with Paul as he checked my bags for water, explosives, and goats on my way into the Bod, and letting myself sleep from 4:00 am to 6:00 am before writing the last three pages of my paper, which, forty-eight hours prior, seemed completely impossible to complete.
But what about the people who have been here? I spend a lot of time trying to piece together what I've missed, plus trying to figure out what is actually important. Friends have graduated, moved, stressed, searched, danced, drank, mingled, studied, written, slept, ran, loved, cried, discovered, and a million other things -- and it's amazing what matters. Break ups that involved weeks of sobbing, yelling, and alcohol have been explained to me in a few, brief, non-chalant sentences. Huge life decisions, too, like where to live or pursue work: "I dunno, I just decided it was best."
Oh!
Like I said, it's not a bad thing. Not at all. Some people (and it's usually the same three people that you always expect) are just easy -- even after months, years, trips to the moon, whatever, you can spend a lunch with them and feel the odd, wonderful sensation that you fit right back into their lives, but that they understand that trips to the moon might change you, or at least make you feel like an alien (slightly).
And that's worth everything.
So many of my classmates studied abroad this semester as well, and it's weird! Secretly, I think that each of us holds to the idea that our experience was hands down the best and that nothing can compare. But, isn't that the truth? It was the best for each of us as individuals! Just like each day is different for each person -- we choose to be ourselves because that's the best we can do.
I don't think going abroad the second semester of Junior year is just about timing your credits correctly. I think it falls perfectly at the line between having a thousand friends who know every detail of your personal life and having a few good friends who care (while the other thousand remain very positive background noise). From now on, I suppose life will be more work, more of me talking to myself from nine to five and saying, "Just fine," when someone asks how my day is going. It's not a bad thing, it's just .. the next thing.
Here ends my cathartic post. It was necessary to start writing again, even if no one is reading. I would love to hear about other people's experience adjusting to home or school or to a new place or old place, if you have the time. If not, remember that it's okay to flip through pictures and feel strange. We're all on a trip (of the journey variety, not of the drug kind, unless that's your style, in which case all power to you), and we're all going somewhere.
It's a good thing.
