If I were a main character, this is where I’d be: A London Post Pt 2

[disclaimer: as I was traveling alone and am a woman, I chose to post this after I returned from England]

I dunno if you know this, but I took this grand trip to England for my birthday. Let me tell you, what a way to ring in twenty-six!

One of my pals from school is getting her PhD at Oxford, and she’s basically living my dream. When I planned this trip, I knew I wanted to try and see her, so when she was free this weekend, it felt perfect.

Here’s the thing about my birthday: I don’t tell a lot of people about it. I have several close friends with birthdays the day after, so I never wanted to compete for the weekend plans. That’s not to say I haven’t been extremely bitter in the past that people forget my birthday and not theirs, but that’s not the point. I don’t like planning things, so I stopped seeing a reason to try and have a big celebration. My birthday is important to me for my own (depression-related) reasons, and that’s the part that I care about: a personal victory that I’ve made it another year. So I knew I wasn’t going to tell my friend Annie that it was my birthday unless it came up. I didn’t need it to be extra-special since it already was by being there.

Annie mentioned getting cupcakes, though, so that felt like an opportune time to tell her. I can’t eat a cupcake on my birthday and not come clean!

With my new job, this is a bit more up in the air, but the last couple of months, I’ve been floating the idea of getting my Masters in England (possibly part time) and working fully remotely. The only way I can see myself going back to school is if it’s there. While London is the main place on my radar, I didn’t see any reason to not investigate the ever-prestigious Oxford University. While not ~the city~ Oxford is so cute and very walkable, and the schools look like my dream places to be. I’m a sucker for the brick and stone and general castle-like quality of it all. Plus, I’d know someone there! Plus plus, I could get tapas whenever I wanted at Florence Pugh’s dad’s restaurant.

Obviously, school is now on the back burner, but I haven’t forgotten about it.

Other than a bit of rain in the morning, the day itself was positively beautiful. Sunny and lovely. And the restaurant we went to for lunch was in the middle of a meadow and felt right out of a fairytale. I wish a photo could have captured how magical it felt. There was this gorgeous willow tree hanging over the tables, and I swear it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, glimmering in the sunlight. If that’s not reason enough to go to school there, I don’t know what is.

Being in England feels right to me. It’s like the universe is setting off every alarm to tell me that I’m meant to be here. That’s not to say that almost everything that could go wrong to get here for this trip did go wrong, but fate has always been really fickle about how it works things out for me. Of course, England is far from perfect—hello, colonialism and racism???? There’s a lot to be desired politically here, but that’s another topic for another day. I’m not going to make it out to be a perfect place, by any means. It’s not.

But that doesn’t mean there’s not also a lot I do love about it, the fact that I don’t need a car being reason enough. Just another place to be politically active, if you ask me. What else am I going to do while I’m hyped up on espresso? Might as well be useful.

I really love spending time in this country. It’s so green and the sky is so often gray and gloomy—my favorite. And even though I’m from a state in a perpetual heat wave, even the sunny days are more magical here.

I guess I have a very skewed view of living there, since both times I was essentially on vacation. Even when I was doing school in 2016 and last week when I was working part time, it still felt like a full vacation. No real responsibilities, just spending the day walking around drinking coffee and looking less fashionable than everyone else. Really, everyone looks fabulous all the time. I didn’t pack extensively, since I only took a carry-on size suitcase, but I should’ve packed smarter! I wanna be posh.

Is that what belonging feels like, though? Genuine question. When you’re in your dream city, the place you want to end up in in life, does it just feel…right? How cliche is that, honestly. 

I’m genuinely living my best life right now. I mean, could be doing cooler things and I guess it’d be nice to have a hot London Boy on my arm (@ Taylor Swift, can you hook me up?), but I’d need a dude who is fine with walking eleven miles every day……but other than that: my best life. I’m having such a fabulous time being a general nuisance.

Can’t wait to see how many more steps I can get in on this trip.