emeroo abroad: chapter two

Good morning my friends! Welcome to the second chapter of my UK adventure. You have no idea how thrilled I am to be sitting here writing to you. The sun is out today, something that's been happening often enough in Hatfield lately that it might not be a fluke (insert praying hands emoji). Maybe it's time to shove the knitwear to the back of my dorm shelves and finally get some use out of my Celine sunnies. But I can't get too used to the warmth yet. That's what I've learnt since the last time we chatted; everything that happens on this journey is subject to change at all times. When there's a clock ticking in the background of a new, enriched life, everything can not just shift, but do a complete 360 in a split second. I'm morphing and evolving into a new version of myself, and it's terrifying but thrilling. I'm in awe of how I'm starting to say "sorry" with a titch of a British tongue, and how the people around me already feel like family. Families can be wonderfully complicated, especially when they're genuinely strangers who at some point over the last six weeks became important to me. Not knowing what the future holds, and whether I'll ever see any of my new family again when the semester ends, are thoughts I'm trying to avoid. 

Photography by my incredibly talented, wonderful friend Ragib, shot at Wollaton Hall, Nottingham UK.

Find him on Instagram and give him some love! @iragib

 

What happens when the person you know yourself as right now differs from the person that merely weeks ago, you thought you knew perfectly? At the moment, this phenomenon is something I'm trying to bask in. I love my new found ability to travel on my own, head into London every week and pretend I'm a professional user of the underground. It's unbelievable the confidence you can gain from truly faking it until you make it. My key is to always have my Airpods in, giving the allure that I could not possibly have to stop and ask someone for directions. I hide my glances at the signs and arrows pointing me to the Victoria line or the "Way Out", not out of shame for not knowing, but because it makes me feel like a younger version of myself, living the dream playing real life make believe in the playground of London.

Like I said, things change here faster than I can fathom. For now, I'm easing myself out of the giddy excitement and starting to treat my environment as I would my life back home. Not an easy feat, you can probably imagine, especially when everything and everyone around me are essentially blips in the timeline of my life. I don't mean for that to downplay the magnitude for how this very condensed experience is effecting me. Even the shortest of blips can impact you. Maybe even smack you like a godforsaken ton of bricks. But I think that's kind of romantic. As Erdem Moralioglu once said, "I felt there was something quite beautiful about how the love affair was so short". My love affair with England, everything it's brought so far and will bring, will be brief, but I have confidence that it will continue to be something beautiful.

Thanks for reading.

- Emily