England, I miss you!

I left for England this time last year, with some vague notions of finding myself, enjoying a semester aboard, and an odd sense of sentimentality, as Leicester is one of the places my dad studied at while in graduate school. What's missing in a father-daughter relationship in the present I had hoped to find in a shared experience, of a place, though 30 days apart. I don't know what I found in my 3 months aboard, except that the cobbley steps of the Royal Mile of Edinburgh, the dreaming spires of Oxford, the glistening lights of Paris, and the sheer energy in the dance of Madrid will forever be etched in my soul. I cannot wait for a chance to go back. But I know that to return as a visitor will never match the childlike wonder of seeing it for the first time. And I will no longer be a student, which has implications of its own.

I traveled to the other side of the world to find myself, but still the greater distance is between who I am, and who I long to be. Feeling quite wistful today; don't know why.