and now, the prospect of returning has become an almost reality, so close i can close my fingers around it and cradle it in the palm of my hand. and now that it's more real, i'm thinking to myself: what will i do?
i know it could never be the same as it was four years ago. i know that i could only have that experience one, at that age, in that year, in those circumstances, with those people. there will be no drinking outof nutella jars, no games of kings with cider, no secrets shared at the crack of dawn, no dancing in the bars until our heads were spinning. and after all this time, i am okay with that - i'm glad that it happened but am content to leave that in the past.
what i think about now are the artifacts, the pieces of me that are still woven into that city, that i feel like i am on a mission to go and excavate.
in london, i was stripped raw. i became a person i never wanted to be, but at the same time i was also the most myself i had been in a very long time. even though i was confused and conflicted, it wasn't because i couldn't figure out what i wanted or who i was - it was because i could see it clearly, laid out before me, and i chose not to see it, or do what i had to do.
and yet, there was so much beauty in that confusion, in that charmed semester where i was just me, without the labels of friend or girlfriend or sister or daughter or classmate. the people there that i knew from before were either acquaintances or friends i had grown apart from, and none of them were in my primary group of friends, anyways. and so i drank and i danced and i laughed and i was honest and i did what my flawed, flawed heart told me to do, and it got me in trouble but to this day i wouldn't change any of it, not a thing.
it's so funny to think of the person i was then, and the person i am now - we are so different and yet we are the same because we are both the most honest versions of myself that i have ever been. i learned a lot from michelle, version fall 2008. i wouldn't be where i am now without that lost girl who forged ahead even though she didn't know where she was going.
right now, i long to go back because i miss my city and i want to walk down those streets again and drink beers in my favorite pubs again and take in the imprints of history. i want to hold jeff's hand as i walk down the strand and show him the magic and life and wonder of this place i love so much.
and at the same time, i long to go back because i want to retrace my steps. i want to go write over the old memories with new ones. i want to pick up those pieces of my heart that are scattered around that city. i want to come to terms with that lost girl. i want to somehow reach back through the years and tell her to keep living and to keep learning and to cherish that time because the nights spent crying only make the nights spent laughing that much better. i want to tell her that she can become the best version of herself. i want to tell her that it all turns out okay, it really really does.
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