We all have moments from time to time where we uncover a piece of the past, pick it up, dust it off, and perhaps remember how useful or beautiful or fun it used to be.
Well, today, this blog is it.
I had to trawl through six years of my Facebook feed to find it, because I’ve changed computers since I last posted and it is no longer in my Bookmarks. Six years.That’s right, my friends. We have been in London for seven years now. Seven years, two kids, one post-graduate qualification and three apartments (flats!) after moving here, I am writing again.
In fact, I didn’t exactly stop writing in August of 2016, at least not immediately. I had big plans for writing about our experience walking the West Highland Way with a toddler on our backs. It was going to be AWESOME, friends! But…the plans were too big, and then I was expecting Baby #2, and then we had to move to Flat #2, and then I had a toddler, and more visitors, and the new baby, and eventually…I forgot. Not even being stuck indoors for months during a global pandemic managed to remind me of the travel blog of my earlier days!*
So here we are, back at seven years.
The thing about being here for seven years is that this place kind of has become home. Or at least, a home. I reached the point ages ago when I couldn’t tell whether someone was speaking in a London accent or an American accent. In fact, I’ve since begun to notice how nasally my home accent can be, and I can’t deny that my own speech is noticeably transatlantic, especially when I first land in the States for a visit.
But a home isn’t made out of a language. It is forged by an identity. A belonging. I will always be an American and will hold a deep love and appreciation for my friends and family in the US–moving abroad has made that utterly and unequivocally clear to me. But time and friendships and memories have dug into the ground here, too, and formed roots. I may still be useless at quiz nights, but the Christmas crackers now elicit the expected eyerolls, and the local political satire yields a chuckle. I’ve developed an overall sense of the geography of the UK (useful, because that postgraduate qualification was in teaching primary school…) and, to be completely honest, I have shifted from being embedded in American politics to side-eyeing Boris Johnson…again.
In so many ways, I cannot relate to the American experience anymore. Is this what it means to be an expat? An immigrant? Perhaps. But I have reached the point where this country fails to feel foreign to me–I am no longer an excellent tour guide, alas, because everything just feels so…normal. Like home.
*Although I did write some music! Which might be a topic that comes up again at some point in a future post.
