Alien-Human Hybrid

When I was a junior in college, I studied abroad at the University of York in England. I spent the better part of my senior year trying to get over England, trying to forget how much I loved it, trying to ease the longing to return and stop my heart from breaking every time someone asked me about my experience abroad. I eventually learned to stop yearning for England and to move on with day-to-day life here in the States, where I was born and where I will likely remain for a very long time. I've pined for England less and less as time has passed. I've let it go.

But then, on New Year's Day of this year, it occurred to me that it has been four years since I've been in York. Four years. And ever since I realized that, I've been pining all over again, just as intensely (perhaps ridiculously) as I did during my senior year of college. I can't stop thinking of England, of the way York smells, of the damp city streets, of the small movie theater where I spent the better part of each week, of the long and restless walks down cobble stoned roads, of the nights spent lying awake and staring at the York Minster, amazed that something so large could be so graceful. I've been thinking of all of it: smoking cigarettes on my windowsill, reflective train rides to London and Leeds, excursions to Spain, France, Scotland and Holland, dirty hostels, eating too many pastries, drinking too much vodka, reading away the afternoons, long phone calls home to my mother and my friends. All of it seems so brilliant, even the filthy showers and hot, crowded computer labs. So, once again, I'm aching to get back there.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever stop missing York.

Labels: England

Posted by Sara on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 at 10:28 PM | Permalink