thought for food.

this following has nothing to do with the books. psyche.

it has recently been occurring to me that i will be going home in just over two months. this is strange. when i first arrived here and told people i was to be in hull for only a semester i would preface the statement with "unfortunately". the idea not being that i didn't want to return to bellingham and the US but rather that i wanted as much time abroad as i could get. but now it's as if i am feeling more prepared to go home and finish uni at WWU. sure it saddens me that i won't get to fly to france for £5 after the 3rd of february. but it also saddens me to be away from the people i love.

over the past few weeks i have spent a great deal of time on my own, wandering northern europe, sodding about, attending concerts, missing flights and generally making a worthless slouch of myself. i have spent more time on metros and undergrounds than i have in front of books or computers and as a result i have taken more pictures than will fit on my laptop. aside from visiting friends for an evening in paris i have spent the last two+ weeks figuring this area out for myself. i have seen notre dame, the eiffel tower, the french countryside via auto tour, big ben, the tower bridge, hyde park, parliament and train-toured all of england. the experiences have been, in an overused word, unforgettable.

but this is selfish. i have found that, over the long term, this type of living isn't sustainable. depsite my best attempts to prove to the world that i don't need anybody i have only shown myself that for days at a time i am content to not speak to anybody. the difference between not having anyone you love close to you and not doing a great deal of speaking to those people has become shatteringly clear. the time i went out and spent on my own was enlightening and i would never dare replace it with any other experience but at the same time i cannot help but miss those who i love. angela, joel, ben, spencer, morgan, mom & dad, brothers...there are countless people in the US that i find myself thinking about daily. it doesn't matter where i am but inevitably the thought crosses my mind that boy, they might really like this place.... i want everybody i know to be able to visit me. i want everybody i know to be able to see everything i see.

so in the end i simply find myself thinking of my family. my friends in bellingham. my friends in olympia that i don't speak to anymore. my friends in bellingham that i don't speak to anymore. the people i don't speak to anymore wherever they are. when i return to bellingham i want to rekindle what i've lost with some. i want to make new friends and meet new people. i want to see new things in the united states, things i never thought i would want to see. and i want friends to share these experiences with me.

life is good. but it's hardly worth mentioning if you don't have people you love.

-e