This past week marked the halfway point in my English adventure....Halfway...can you believe it? I can't. I've thought a lot this past week about what being in England means to me. About what going home means to me. I've been surprised with what I have found within myself each time I contemplate leaving here. It is the same answer time and again. I will be inexplicably sad. I miss home and my family and all the American things I am used to but I feel so much a part of 'home'...it is so ingrained in who I am...that I feel like it will never be a place I leave even if I am physically gone. Apart from wanting to see my family and sleep in my own bed I find the idea of leaving here hard. Because I realized something...this is not my country, these are not my people, these customs and traditions are not mine, this experience adds to who I am but this place doesn't help to define me... when I leave here, my connection to this country will fade. I will forget things that I've learned because a year doesn't leave a person making habits comparable in any way to the life long habits made at home. I will probably never have the sense of belonging here as I do at home and so will eventually fondly remember my 'visit' here instead of my 'life'. A year is just a blip of time far overshadowed by the decades spent at home. The fragile fledgling relationships, though much loved, will never quite bloom because the people never really learn who you are outside of this context. Leaving this place will make me sad because I realize what I am leaving behind - what I am losing when I go home.
This place will never be a part of me in the way that home is though I sometimes wish it could be.
On a happier note, despite the quiet reflections, this halfway week has been a fun one....a field trip to Eden Camp with my class (an amazing WW2 history camp), finding a fair trade store to volunteer at on one of my free days, playing dodge ball with a couple of local cops during youth group, seeing The Vow with my teammates and spending some good quality bonding time with them...it was a good week. I will deal with leaving this place when I must but for now I am going to continue to enjoy myself and my good fortune at being placed here.
