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Then think you right: I am not what I am. – Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Living in London and traveling England was the best thing
I’ve ever done. It was magical and cold and spiritual and lonely and uplifting
and cold and empowering and inspiring and cold, and most of all, I put on at
least half a stone. Digestives are the delicious, delicious devil.
For all the courage and wonder England poured back into me,
for all the beauty it sewed back into my seams, it did a nasty thing. It
introduced the idea of discontent into a simple life. I have got two homes where I used to have one, and I am too simple for
this loaded gun. To quote A. A. Milne, how lucky I am to have something
that makes saying goodbye so hard. How lucky I am to have two such places, filled
with two such sets of people, home to two such sets of memories. But how hard
it is. Even so, it’s a blessing. Even when it hurts, even when it makes you so
sad you feel nauseous (that’s a thing, isn’t it? Just me?) isn’t there
something kind of wonderful about one’s heart being in two places at once? That’s
a lot of love to go around, fools.
I was only away for a few months, and when I returned, I was
thrilled to be home for Christmas, and how good that felt. I had missed snow,
and my dogs, and my family, and the many simple pleasures of my daily life. Also
my fat ginger cat. Obviously. But as time wears on, I feel this itch – a
nagging need to return to my other home. It won’t be for years, I know. I leave
in August, off to colorful Guatemala for 18 months. (And God did good by not
sending me on a mission to the UK – I for sure would have bunked off in the
night and stayed forever.) And after that, God only knows. Seriously. But I do
need back. And it scares me. What’ll I do without my family? If we’re being
honest as honest gets, here, I live with my grandparents, and they’re old. Not
terribly so, as grandparents go – early to mid-seventies – but shouldn’t I
spend as much time with them as I can? My brother wants to live in the States,
so does my mother – shouldn’t I be close to them? My brother, especially, is my
best friend. My cousins and aunts and uncles, to whom I’m all very close –
they’re all here. I want to marry a good Mormon boy in the temple, and I don’t
know too many of those who are willing to leave their family and country and
move to a foreign place for, well, longer than two years. And even for two
years, they do it for God, so I can’t quite convince myself they’d do it for
some girl who will probably spend their life’s savings on merchandise at the
Harry Potter Studio Tours. (I mean, £130 in one go. That’s a little bit
ridiculous.)
And above all, I don’t know what God’s plan is. My deal with
him – and you know just how well making deals with God goes – is that if I must
stay in Utah, I’d like to stay right here. Right in my own cabin in the woods
in the mountains, right here where I know I could be happy –at times a bit
discontented, probably, going to the same grocery store my whole life, but for
the most part, truly happy. And there’s a part of me that rather likes the idea
of always buying my overpriced produce from Ream’s. Still, if I must stay in
Utah, I’ve argued with Him, don’t send me out to Provo or Sandy or for heaven’s
sake, Spanish Fork. Let me stay here. But my hope is that if He doesn’t keep me
here (and I mean right. here. buddy.), He’ll let me go to my other home, and
everything will work out. So it’s scary, because I want to do His will and I
want to do what I want to do but I don’t know what His will is and I don’t know what I want to do.
But hey ho, in God we trust, righto.
In interviewing for Study Abroad, I blurted that I was a
total homebody. I then realized my mistake –ugh, I didn’t want them to think
that if they accepted me I’d be sniveling and homesick all the time – and
stammered, “Um, but I love to travel. I…I like being at home…but I,um…like to
travel…too...” I thought I had blown it with that. They would think I was a
fool and a baby and no Rupert Grint for me-o. The last part remains true (not
for long. #DeterminationNation) but obviously my professors didn’t think me
fool and childish enough to turn me away. So not that long ago, a little bit
over a year ago, actually, I thought that. I thought I was a wanderlusty
homebody. I’ve since discovered I’m not. I’m a homebody homebody. It’s just that in my desperate need to travel
to England, a need I’ve nurtured since probably ten years old (thanks, J.K.
Rowling, for screwing me up royally. Two homes are the last thing a girl
needs.), I think I knew England would feel like home. Not all of it. There were
places that were not for me. I mean, you know, I can’t think of any, but I’m
sure there is maybe one nasty industrial town in England I couldn’t bear to
live in. Probably. Or it might all be perfect. That’s more likely.
But in London, I found an exciting, vibrant city tailored
perfectly to the fact that I’m, you know, 19. I want to try food that makes me
sick and see plays that make me cry and nearly fall into the Thames (but
actually) and, most especially, see gorgeous men every day of my life. Most
especially. But you know what? I didn’t love London because I’m, like, so cosmopolitan and such a traveler. I loved it for the sweet man who ran the corner
shop and always recognized me and asked how I was doing. Probably because he
was concerned I would one day OD on Coke and McVitie’s. “Y’all right, love?”
Translation: “I see yesterday’s Kinder Eggs have already caught up to your
chin. How about some nice fruit and veg, love?” I loved it for Mark’s &
Spencer’s (I’m looking at you, Veggie Percys.) I loved it for the Starbucks I
threw ALL my money at every morning and the baristo (is that a thing?) with the
excellent Cockney accent, and also for the smiley Polish girl at Paul Rhode’s
who I never, ever, understood. I loved it for my Southbank, which was apple
cider and honeycomb at Borough Market and the Mexican Street Kitchen (hello
winter veg burrito!) and the Thames and Southwark Cathedral and those sweet
roasted nuts on Millennium Bridge. There is an embarrassing wealth of
food-related things on here. I loved it
for Kensington Gardens and Ben’s Cookies and I loved it overwhelmingly for The
British Museum, which rocks and is the coolest and if you don’t agree then you
suck. Sorry.
The point, my friends – yes, astonishingly, there is a point
– is that I loved my routine, I loved the BYU London Centre, I loved the
million little daily things that made it feel like my London, my home. Just as
my home in the canyon makes me feel warm and loved, just as the astonishing
where-have-you-been-all-my-life-ness of Ambleside makes me feel both cosy and
alive, I felt like London loved me back. I’ve got a book, an oral anthology,
called Londoners, it’s bloody
brilliant, and there’s plenty of people that don’t feel that way. London
couldn’t care less, they feel, and, you know what? I forked over a large sum of
cash and then mysterious BYU travel peeps arranged a (pretty bloody posh)
living situation, transport, dinner almost every night. It was a bloody good
gig. So I’ve never really had to fend for myself in that big grey city. I can
absolutely see how it would drain you, and especially if you’re from the
country. Even I plan to head to Ambleside after, tops, ten years in the city. But
five and a half months later, London is still pulsing, pulsing, pulsing in my
blood and I may be wrong, I may be too optimistic, I’m sure as heck naïve – but
I think I’ve got enough of London in my system to survive, and, dare I say it,
thrive.
I just hope I got to go for more than the incredible
experience. If that was all, if God was like, yeah, everything can fall into
place for you to go just to like, renew you and fulfill this dream of yours,
then okay. If He’s got a different plan, a plan that doesn’t involve that green
island, fine. I can deal. I can trust Him. But I hope You sent me there to
prepare me for a life there, Big Guy. I really, really do.
I am not what I am, yet. I’ve only been alive 19 years,
there’s only 365 days in a year, I was not really fully functioning for at least
5,840 of those days, I actually doubt I’m fully functioning now. At least, I
hope this isn’t my mental and emotional prime. That would be embarrassing. I
would almost certainly be a divine fluke, in that case. Put this one back on
the assembly line. But if I am not what I am, yet, then I am slowly getting
there. England was an essential part of that. That place is now an essential
part of me, and I know it sounds silly, and I know it sounds dramatic, and I
know I was only in England for a little over two bloody months, but they were
the most insane and incredible two months of my little life, they really were.
When you’ve only been around 233 months, 2 (plus that other spare fantastic
month floating around, called France and Belgium and the Netherlands) that are
so drastically different from the other 230 are actually a big bloody deal. I
wouldn’t be me, a terrifying thought, without London and everywhere else, I
wouldn’t be whoever I’m going to be without it, either. I am not what I am. But
whatever I am to be, there’s this beautiful place thousands of miles away that
is going to be part of it. There’s this country called Guatemala that’s going
to be part of it. There are a hundred other places and people that are going to
be part of it that I don’t have a bloody clue about yet. But I am so stoked
about all my homes and all my people and all my transfigurations. Change is the
actual scariest, but it’s also the actual best. And there’s something wonderful
about not knowing a bloody thing about the future.
Dear Heavenly Father,
As long as said future involves England.
Love,
Tabby
Tabby
P.S. I promise someday I’ll learn not to try to make
bargains with you.
P.P.S. Just as long as you send me back to England.
P.P.S. Just as long as you send me back to England.
