Alright. I have lots to say today, so we need to get right down to business. Three weeks. Three eternally long, unbelievably trying weeks where I wrote a plethera of papers, midterms, studied, drove myself crazy, got driven crazy by the kids.. i don't need to continue... sure you got the picture.
Day in and day out I sat at this very computer for four, six, eight, ten hours in a row... homework HOMEWORK! I missed my friends, i missed my family. I missed myself!
But I was awaiting the reprieve, looming on the horizon. Two whole days with my people! The ones I love, and they love me. Oh I was so excited.. it was the only thing that got me through some days in that last week.
SO.. I packed up the kids. I packed up my belongings (amazing how much stuff a girl needs for two days) and I drove two hours home, on Friday afternoon.. braved the Hamilton traffic at 330 pm and got rained on for the last twenty minutes of the trip. But I was so excited I was shaking.
I'm not going to go into the nitty gritty details. What actually happened.. neither here nor there. But it's funny how when you live in your hometown, your life is great. Your people are three minutes away by car (usually) and stop by at regular intervals. When you get ready to leave that hometown, you cry, you worry, you cling and you make promises not to forget each other, that you will keep in touch, and don't worry, we'll see each other every other weekend. Then you go. It's terrible.
You are homesick. You cry yourself to sleep each night, you eat pepto bismol like it really is a food group and you run up your long distance exponentially because it's so important for you to speak with them. ALL of them. ALL the time. You have a day where you start packing up your shit and going home because you have had enough of the university bull and you're going home where someone loves you.
But then you wake up.
You go to class.
You figure out, hey.. maybe I can do this. So you try. You get lost in the homework, the reading, the note taking, the paper writing... and you stay home on the weekend you're supposed to come back cause you have a midterm to study for, and in your hometown, friends and family always take precedence.
Ok. So.. it's three weeks since you've been home, you can't wait, you're going crazy! You can almost feel the arms of those that love you wrapped tightly around you, smell their shampoo see there wonderful smiles.
But you get there, and no one takes notice. No one leaves the stove they are cooking at to hug you hello, or makes special time for you knowing you're coming into town and headed straight for them. They toss you a hello over their shoulders, or throw a limp one-armed hug in your direction before they run off to do the fifteen items they have planned for the weekend and you are standing there, suitcase in hand, tired, lonely, and near tears.
Suddenly - you want to go back to London. It was much nicer to be there and imagine that people at home are having a hard time living without you. There you can fantasize that they miss you as much as you miss them, that crushing sorrow that follows a lukewarm reception is overwhelming, and for sure! The four, six, eight hours in front of the computer with notes and papers and reading seems desirable. At least you can trust that. You don't worry that you will wake up one day and the textbook won't like you anymore. You can be sure that you won't find yourself wondering why your lecture notes say they miss you, but don't act like it. The eight hundred dollars worth of books that you keep your nose in will definitely never reschedule you for other plans when it hasn't seen you in three weeks.
Long story short... no one misses me anymore. I walk in and out of their lives and it doesn't matter anymore. Keeping in touch isn't so important, and there isn't a worry that anyone will forget about each other, because they already have.
So, I'm home. And I still cried myself to sleep. Welcome to Monday.
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