Today was just another ordinary day, I woke up early and headed off to work. I was reading on a case about a corporation established in the UK, and it hit me with a bit of rain outside the windows. I stopped, looked around, and drifted. I read a blog of a close friend about the UK, a deep and nostalgic entry that inspired me to write this, rather a similar story with a different view.
I started my journey like no others. It was something I would never have thought about in a million years, in my wildest imagination. I had a chance to go, then lost it, and tried everything I could to grab it back and I succeeded. I thought, it might be, perhaps meant to be. Indeed it was.
I felt like home the second I landed. 6 hours on the coach after a 24-hour flight was nothing. People would think I'm lying when I say I was not excited, yet I really was not. I was calm, enjoying every single bit of that greenfield along the road heading towards the South West of England, and was in peace.
The next 6 years were marvellous. I might not have travelled as much as I wanted or had time to try certain things. But I also did what no one else had never done before. I was completely in peace and in control. I know I did have some hard moments (who didn't?!), I had days when I had to fake my smiles and keep moving, but never a day I thought of leaving. I knew then and I know now, I was living in the best place on earth and nothing could come in and kick me out. It was a good run, or shall I say "an era!".
Life got in the way. The moment I realised I had to go back, it felt something like a ticking bomb. Certainly, I was not trying hard enough as I should have; I got distracted with the work that I truly love.
My friend, she left when everyone but her place was telling her to stay. It was a rather opposite situation for me. All my stuff I brought 6 years ago with me started to break down one by one. It even felt like they were shouting at me, "we have had enough of this!". Well, they did have a point. No one wears a pair of house flipflop for 6 years like me. They must have been tired of my feet!
Then I left.
I couldn't say a word when I moved out of my room, the place I had been for 4 years. I hardly said a word on my way to the coach station on my probably last cab trip, to take my probably last coach, to the place I may never see again, London Heathrow Airport.
Right at this moment when I'm typing this entry, it has been 6 months exactly to every second.
Life starts at the end of your comfort zone. I guess, nothing can describe what I have been going through better. I now started another chapter of my life in a country I don't want to live and deal with stuff that I don't like everyday. Now, fake smiles are really fake smiles with no genuine reason to cheer up other people around me, or to ensure them not to worry. Fake smiles now, are just a thing I do because I hardly smile again.
Yet, I understand what my friend's place wanted when it said nothing to her and what my stuff said to me. My stuff couldn't bear another moment at that room. It's time to grow up, time to move on, and leaving does not mean I will never come back. I will come back, better, older but with the same heart.
And to that special friend of mine, it said nothing perhaps because it knew you would come back one day. Sometimes, we, human are funny. The more others say to us, the more we want to do the opposite. And sometimes, some say nothing when you want to leave because they love you much enough and (hope) they know you well enough to know you will be back.
Ps: to answer the title of this entry, you are always my home and I love you with every bit of my heart, you foggy island!
It said nothing to me because it knew it had already gained a place in my heart, a special place that will always be remembered and be treasured. And just to let you know you also have one. :)
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