at this moment, exactly a year ago, i had just walked off the flight from London Heathrow to Seattle. i can vividly remember standing in the customs line for "US citizens only" and realizing with shock that i woz surrounded by americans for the first time in almost a year.

hm. funny how life goes on.

*update*
here for your reading pleasure is an essay i wrote for my english class on the subject...

14 October
On this day last year I remember exactly where I was. I remember walking off the plane in SeaTac airport after the 12-hour flight from London. If I close my eyes, I still can feel the sinking in my stomach as I stepped into the "U.S. citizens" customs line and realized I was surrounded by Americans for the first time in almost a year. This moment had been expected, if not dreaded, but the knowledge that it would come did not ease my dismay at all. I’ve always hated leaving, but I find that re-adjusting to somewhere I left behind is much worse that just adjusting to somewhere completely new.

As I stood in that customs line in the airport, faced with my reality, I tried not to think about what would happen next. "Maybe this time won’t be so bad", "maybe I’ll get used to it", maybe...but the sick, nervous "I can't believe this is really happening" feeling still haunted my stomach. For weeks previous every time I let my thoughts wander to leaving England, that sick feeling would take hold of my stomach. Now it was joined by a thought I wanted to close my eyes and hide from: my worst fears had come true, I had been forced to leave. Not forced by anyone or anything, only by time itself, which compelled me, internally kicking and screaming, to board the plane I had purchased a ticket for. And ready or not to let go and move on, "I’m already here, there's no more ignoring, putting off, or wishing this day would never come". My parents and grandparents were waiting on the other side of this line, of course I'd be happy to see them and they couldn't wait to see me, but how can I really be happy, be "glad to be home" when my heart is screaming, IT'S NOT HOME, it's only the place I grew up, my home is somewhere else and that's where I want to be.

Home is England, where church bells ring every hour, where my local pub is, where I can go get kebab meat and chips any day of the week. It’s where double-decker buses are the norm and the number 9 bus driver is my friend. It’s where things are spelled "colour" and "favour" and the date is written the right way round: day first, then month and year. It’s where my phone is called a mobile, not a cell phone, and mine is the cute little Nokia version that’s so popular.

Home is where Graham Norton is on TV and the adverts (as they are called there) are better than most programs. It's where I can turn on the radio and hear everything I like on one station, or buy a compilation CD with all my favourite songs on it. It's where the towns, cities and countryside look as I always imagined England would look; small, crowded, old, quaint, and well...English. Where every so often as I walked around, I had to pinch myself, just to make sure: "I’m not dreaming, I really am here."

Home is where Jo is, where Gary is, where Lesley, Kev, Sarah, Lily, Chris, Stephen, Susan, Andy, Dan, Kirsty, Hannah, Joe, and Shafiq are. And now home is miles away, home is somewhere I can't go back to. Home is a place I want to be, but I’ve left to come here. And here is not home.

Answering when people ask why England feels like home is hard. Nearly as hard as answering all the questions of “How was your trip?” or “What did you like about it?” people bombarded me with right after I returned. It didn’t always feel like home, there was a time when I struggled with the cultural differences and felt frustrated with everything. But I got through that stage, and when I did, it became home.

And suddenly, in the span of 24 hours, it wasn’t home anymore. It’s funny how the activity of one single day spent on an airplane can dramatically change one's life for years afterward. Sometimes I think about how people used to travel by boat or covered wagon, and how much healthier it must have been. It gave a person time to adjust to the concept of living somewhere new. Time to let go of the things being left, and to get used to the idea of the place they're going. But now, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I’m just left to try and deal as best I can.

Since the day I woke up in England, and went to sleep in Seattle, it feels that not much has changed. I still sometimes get confused over which side of the road to drive on, or walk up to the passenger side of my car. My spelling is forever altered, and whenever I eat a meal with a fork, it’s in my left hand, opposite the knife in my right. What took less than 10 months to learn, I seem unable to unlearn, even after all this time.

And more than all those little things that daily remind me of England, the emotions I felt a year ago are still strong. I can feel them as if it was yesterday. It’s as if I stepped off the plane and something inside me just stopped, and it's waiting...still waiting for something better to come along.

It’s not that I haven’t tried to convince myself that I can be just as happy here as I think I would be in England. And fun moments have come and gone over the past year. Sometimes they come often enough that I start to think that maybe I’m perfectly happy living here, in the northwest corner of this country. But then something, some little word or thought or scent or song comes across my path, and suddenly it feels like I’m there again, and leaving again, all at the same time.

EPILOGH
This morning, instead of waking up in England, I woke up to a text message from England. I’m thankful for this technology, keeping me connected with people, after another form of technology tears them out of my life. But just an email address and a phone number can't fill that hole, that void left by hugs missed. It can't make up for the lonely feeling when you have no one to watch a movie with. It can't make it better when you need to just be with some you miss, and it can't replace all the little things that make a friendship: inside unspoken jokes, playing pool, walking home late at night, laughing about silliness, or talking about the deepest stuff. And even if you email every day, it’s still not the same as living day by day with someone, sharing your life, your hurts, your joy, yourself. This is the most lasting pain from leaving England, being separated from friends I love.

In my recent mind-searching, examining my continual desire to be re-united with beloved friends has proved illuminating. I’ve learned that it’s one thing to have a friend taken out of your life, and quite another thing to accept it; one thing to see God act and another to say “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord”. Sometimes, I ask myself if and when I'll stop wishing for the friends I've left behind and start living in the present, start enjoying what God is giving me in each moment.