While I'm not entirely sure what this blog is going to look like now that we are back in the States, I do know that I still have a lot of pictures and memories that I want to share from our time in London. And selfishly, I'm going to use this to process the end of those hard-at-first but magical times in London. It's been an odd sensation to be homesick for a place I swore I'd never call home.
There is no doubting it, as hard as it was to sometimes find a babysitter and to not have family a phone call away to help, that life in London was so simple. Maybe not easy, but simple. Our little nest was just that. Little. Tiny. Simple. About the size of my kitchen and den right now. Total and no exaggeration. But my babies were right up under me and it felt so safe. Sure, a bigger nest would be great and fitting 2 people in the kitchen without bumping into one another is fine and all, but having your family right there, snuggled in, well there is just nothing like it. Our new house is a blessing, no doubt, but right now it feels very cavernous and my babies seem far away.
It's an odd life--being an expat--you long for home and its SUVs, large grocery stores, and familiar faces. That first winter feels like a lifetime of grey days and rain. There is just one tea cup at your table in the afternoon. Friends from home pull you through and a visit refreshes you. Then suddenly, one day, walking from Bond Street to Mayfair listening to an iPod, you find freedom in the new faces and life in those city streets. You are used to your online grocery orders and know what ingredients you can and cannot find in your new home. And the bus lines become as familiar as the interstates at home. The once-in-awhile friend for tea has become habitual and your home is strewn with toys and at least two empty cups at the end of the afternoon. It's not that you don't miss your friends and family in the States or that they could have possibly been replaced. But it's that without you even knowing it, your strange new city became home. Not Home, but just another home. Don't we have a few of those each if we are lucky?
In this transition, I'm missing my London home. A case of absence makes the heart grow fonder? But all it takes is me looking around at the faces of the people who have known me for years and years, and I'm reminded that this too will feel like home for my little family. It will look different and feel different than when I last lived here-- from when we left to make a home across the pond, even to make a home in Winston-Salem. I've changed. My family has changed. London happened. It was home and will always be one of my homes. And for my London home, I'll always, always be grateful.
