Saturday, February 20 5:30 pm
I didn’t truly feel like I was in London until I just did. In fact, I didn’t even realize that a part of me wasn’t feeling quite in place here, until the moment that I felt like I was exactly where I need to be. I stepped out of the Westminster station, walking up the steps that had been the exact ones that brought me to see the quintessential downtown London for the first time with my aunt nearly four years ago.
I’ve been here just over three weeks but I’ve had to consistently remind myself of where I am and be mindful that this is such a gift.
Returning to the Familiar
In that moment, stepping into the rare 60˚, sunny England day, I suddenly didn’t have to remind myself of a thing. Under my mask that I kept on even outside, I felt myself smiling so wide and was glad that it wasn’t as noticeable as it would otherwise be. I liked having that moment all for myself, to not at first glance appear out of place as I might have, had people around me been able to see my expression.
I know that, realistically, most people aren’t traveling at all, let alone between countries, and I don’t want to flaunt the fact that I am in a place that I have only been for a few short weeks. Nonetheless, I was ecstatic under that mask as I walked for miles along the river, revisiting all the places that I fell in love with and associate with London in my mind. I’ve been here, but I was finally here if that makes any sense at all.
That’s what the difference is. I’ve been living in a borough of London, which has been a great experience for me to get acquainted with the northern part of the British capital. In my memories though, walking along the Thames and going to Harrods and exploring Notting Hill are some of the things that stand out to me. So, to be in a part of the city that is so familiar to me, to see murals and skateparks and cafes that were my introduction to London, that was the piece I needed to truly feel present here.
I wrote the bottom section of this nearly two weeks before this main part, but didn’t feel like I was ready to be done with it quite yet. I now know that it felt like something was missing because I hadn’t been in any of the parts of London that prompted me to do this, to move here for however fleeting a moment this might be.
Looking Back
I was seventeen and just out of high school when my aunt (the same one that fueled my love of travel to begin with) took me on a European trip to celebrate my graduation. After spending time in the English countryside, we only had a few days in the city before we were off to Paris, then Switzerland, the south of France, Madrid.
A whirlwind of a trip compiled of places both foreign and familiar to us both but London stood out to me. It’s funny to think, that this might be considered by some the safest, most traditional way to go abroad during college.
In high school, I traveled to Europe with an educational program as a student ambassador, marking my first international flight, visiting new places each day with friends that are still some of my most dear.
During college, I first lived on a ship that sailed around the world, and then in South America focusing on a second language and pushing my limits so often, and now I’m here doing something that feels more familiar than any of those things. At the same time, this is the most different because of the fact that it is the least ‘extraordinary’.
Being Alone
I’ve gotten used to being surrounded by people, at home and abroad, in every sense imaginable. So much of the flexibility I pride myself on having is centered around going with the flow as I travel in groups or around my willingness to meet new people anytime. Now, being here during this pandemic, I am the most alone in a space that I have ever been in my life.
Quarantining brought me more solitude than I have ever had and that, even in the middle of a city and its constant noise, brought me a lot of peace that I wasn’t expecting. I figured it would be a struggle and that I would have a really difficult time being in my studio for that long without anyone around me but that, combined with the daily exploring I have done by myself since then, has made me realize just how flexible I can be by myself.
When you’re alone, deciding what to do or where to walk or eat or what the plan for the day is becomes less about ‘going with the flow’ in the sense of pleasing others or not minding what happens, and more about truly just walking and seeing where you end up. Working remotely and having classes online is the same in a way, the accountability of doing things not because you are made to, but because they will better you or somehow enrich your experience, that is what this is all about.
This Was the Plan
This was the plan for so long. From the time that I was seventeen and knew I’d be here for more than just a vacation one day. In college, when I made the decision to make this my third study abroad during those four short years. When the pandemic hit and plans shifted and I decided that I would still make this happen even if nothing about it looked the same.
The thing is, this was always the plan- to be here, to adjust, to study literature and film and writing, to better myself and do it in a way that is probably the most comfortable out of any experience I’ve had abroad. Things are all different and askew and even lonely at times, but this was the plan and to be here now not only feels like a culmination of years with London in the back of my mind but is the result of me making sure I knew what I wanted from college and going after it in any way necessary.
I’m leaving this next part unedited, as a way to see exactly how I was feeling in this moment of my time here, so recent but so different in perspective already.
Thursday February 4 8:23 pm
Right now, Im sitting on my bed in my studio in London. I’m drinking tea while I listen to the rain pouring down outside my window. I’m watching a webinar my documentary filmmaking professor recommended to us, before courses start next week. I’m wearing the softest teddy I own, that I knew I would want to stuff in my suitcases to have for moments just like this one. I’m so happy. Once, I was wondering if I would really do this, whether or not moving to London would become some juvenile idea to be forgotten in the depths of time or if it would become just the newest reality.
It already feels like this is just my life, because it is, but it hit me tonight that this exact moment is something that I envisioned for myself years ago. I am truly becoming the person I always hoped, believed, I would become.
To me, in this moment, I’m just in my flat and hanging out but to the version of myself that existed a few years ago, this would feel like I get to be a character in my favourite movie- living abroad on my own as an adult, doing things to further my personal experience and enjoy the time I get to spend in this life of mine.
10 Days
I’m on my seventh day of a ten-day quarantine and have been wondering what this will feel like once I am finally able to leave my studio. I think that sometimes, even in boredom, it can be comforting to stay in one place and then once we leave we begin to feel how singular, how small we are in this world.
Right now, it is so easy to be here working and attending welcome week online and doing yoga every day to maintain my sanity. It is also one of the hardest things I have had to do in a sense; I’m not used to being so completely alone for this long. In fact, I have never been this physically alone in my life.
It doesn’t quite feel like solitude, thanks to FaceTime and the opportunities that I have to still connect with the people in my life, but in this very physical, geographical space I am most undeniably solo. So then, I cannot help but wonder whether or not this feeling will amplify or fade away once I am able to walk the neighborhood, once I am forced to explore on my own in a way that I never really have.
I have always lived with roommates, but not always spent time with them- so this feeling of living alone isn’t that unfamiliar to me. What will be a bit stranger is walking around this new place not with new people but alone, still. To realize that I am surrounded by people, but not really with them. It’s a bit daunting but more than anything its exciting.
When I lived in Chile, that was the most independent I’d ever been and now this is the next step in a progression of states of being I will experience during my life. I think it’s good though, to feel like I am here on my own more than with a bunch of likeminded people on a program or familiar faces on a vacation.
Even through the lockdown, I hold the hope that I will be able to immerse myself into a lifestyle that is less observational and more experiential. That’s what the seventeen year old me would expect, at the very least.
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