you've got a fast car, i want a ticket to anywhere

i just want to stop crying. i just want to stop hurting. i just want to know if i made the right decision. i just want to know if i threw away the only thing that mattered. i just want to know if i just made the biggest mistake of my life.

why can't i let myself let go

i can't even look at pictures anymore. for me it's music. it's memories. it's the things we don't have pictures of. it's the things i miss that i can't put into words. it's the way i felt when i walked down the street. it's the way the butter melted on the bread when i dipped it into the soup at lunch. it's the way the wind would rush across my face as a bus sped by. it's the way my umbrella would bump into everyone else's on rainy mornings. it's the way the pint glasses looked, lined up on the table. it's the way i felt when i stood on that spot in the center of the globe stage and said my lines to the whole wide world. it's the way i could just plop onto that red couch on weeknights and talk for hours. it's the way wine would taste when i drank it out of a nutella jar. it's the way i felt when i'd stand alone waiting for tube, headphones in. it's the way the sound of the street would filter through our window at night, no matter how tightly we closed it. it's the way my stomach would hurt sometimes from laughing too much.

sometimes i'd wonder if my city was made out of stars. everywhere we looked-- lights, lights, lights. when it rained, sometimes they'd blend together; every car that rushed by looked like it was painting streaks of color onto the streets. sometimes i'd look out my window and pinch myself because i after weeks and months i still couldn't believe it. there is something about that place that still has my heart, and will always have my heart. you could live there a thousand years and never discover all its secrets. london is alive; it has been alive long before us and will live long after us. we're just a dot on the timeline, a tiny world in the city of stars-- suns for every new galaxy.

in a place where we only say goodbye

every time i listen to death cab it brings me back. or every time i see pictures of people who are there now, or every time i hang out with my london friends here, or every time i look at pictures, or every time i decide to torture myself and google image search it.

sometimes i look back and i can't believe it really happened at all. it was like a dream, this wonderful wonderful dream that could not possibly have been real ... except it was. i don't think i've ever lived more. i don't think i've ever laughed more. i'll never forget it, even when memories fade i'll always remember the feeling, the happiness that just bubbled inside me every day and made me feel like i could do anything.

i wonder how long it'll take me to shake this. i don't know if i ever will.

stuck on a little hot mess

i miss london so much it aches. i didn't know it was possible to miss it so much.

being back here is indescribable in so many ways. i love being back with my friends, new and old. i love the 3W girls and how we're there for each other no matter what and i love my london friends and how we've actually, you know, stayed friends despite being thrown back here partially against our will-- we're doing okay. i went to a basketball game yesterday and even though we lost, i realized how much i really did miss doing the cheers and hoping, wishing, praying, believing in my team. i missed notre dame, because it is comfortable and it has always been home for me.

and still--

3W is straining under the pressure of trying to keep everything balanced. every day i feel like as i gain something, i lose something else. my relationship is straining under the pressure of how i've changed. i miss being able to dictate my own life without thinking about it in correlation with someone else's. which, i guess, is a bit selfish of me, but sometimes i miss making my own decisions and not having to disappoint anyone with my choice of plans for the night. i miss bumming around in flat 7 and being "one of the guys." i never see brian or will anymore, i see matt and dan sometimes on the weekends, evan is always with theresa, and shea is ... well, you know shea. i miss just having a group of guys i can hang out with in my sweats and not worry about anything.

which, again, is pretty selfish of me but hey. i feel like i keep going from one extreme to the other.

i miss seeing michelle every day and i miss our heart to hearts and i miss FG and i miss walking to the globe with kate and i miss breakfast & the LC on mondays with shea and i miss actually being able to go out to actual places and i miss being able to wander around in the freaking city of london and i miss the tube and i miss the bus and i miss looking out my window and seeing st. paul's and the betsey and i miss going out for a pint at exmouth and i miss gill's class and i miss caffe canova and their two-pound soup and i miss our jetset weekends and i miss our fall break shenanigans and i miss walking home through trafalgar square in the dark and i miss the self-checkout at tesco and i miss everything that i know i can never have again, never ever.

i've been trying so hard to be optimistic but i feel like i'm allowed my little missing-london jag every once in a while. sometimes i just need to complain and let it out and this is one of those times.

ahhhhhhh i am so messed up.

her hair was black and her eyes were blue

i find myself reciting shakespeare in the shower. my heart leaps whenever i catch a glimpse of london in a movie scene. i keep myself busy but when i'm free all i do is look at pictures, pictures, pictures with wistful longing. i listen to long division and cath and galway girl and fix you and mr. brightside on repeat and if i close my eyes, it's almost like i'm back in flat 8, nutella jar of wine in hand, ready for where the night will take us.

i miss it too much.

how can i move on if i'm still in love with you

this is both harder and easier than i thought it would be.

i miss london with more of me than i ever thought i could. i close my eyes and i see the south bank, the view from millenium bridge, the globe, the LC, kamen and minerva, farringdon grill, exmouth, everything. i woke up at cami's house the other morning and in the sleepy half-light i thought i was back in my room in flat 13. i've been busy busy busy with friends packing flights family eating beach family reading music family eating; but at times like this, when i have a moment to just breathe, all i can do is stare at facebook and listen to death cab and galway girl and think about what i left behind.

and it's not like i'm sad about going back, either. i'm more than excited to be back at notre dame, to not have to worry about cooking anymore and living with three of my best friends and being close to the people i love and seeing my abroad friends and reunions and JPW and all the usual ND stuff. i missed it, believe it or not. but the difference is that i'll be back to notre dame, at least for a year and a half (!!!) more. i'll never be back to london-- well, i'm sure i'll be back someday, but it won't be the same london, won't be the same people, won't be the same thing ever again. never ever. and maybe that's a good thing, because we lived it up so much for that very reason; but at the same time it's a terrible and awful thing because it's a little pocket of time that we can never do again, that we'll only get back reprocessed through pictures and memories and "hey, remember when..."s.

life splits the moment you are born and it never stops splitting, never, not until you die and all the loose ends are tied up and you are finally, blissfully happy, everything in its right place at the right time, all at once. but until then, you (or maybe it's just me) will always be missing something, no matter where you are or how hard you try. sometimes you just can't deny these things.

and i don't know where to look

the last reason to make this last for as long as i could
the first kiss and the first time that i felt connected to anything
the weight of water, the way you told me
to look past everything i had ever learned


i am in such a weird state of mind. on one hand, i feel more like myself than i ever have; on the other, i am wondering who this girl really is. my heart lies in so many places and i'm getting them all muddled and mixed-up and i'm not really sure what to do.