Home is where the heart is?
As soon as I touched down on this formidable yet quaint once-kingdom, I was in love. It was hard to process how I had travelled 8,000 miles just to feel at home.
Everything about England felt so familiar to me—from the many accents to the left-hand traffic—even though I had never set foot there before. I think a part of this is due to my schooling, I suppose? I remember reading Harry Potter in the fourth grade, wholly enchanted by the many quirks Hogwarts had. And then I started school at BVIS, where we had to wear sweaters over button-ups and we collected house points to win the house cup and the upper classmen had fancy names like “sixth form” or “prefect”. And then I realised that the reason why Hogwarts seemed so magical was probably because the rest of the world wasn’t familiar with the British schooling system yet. But yeah, I guess the familiarity could be because of the I consumed growing up as well? While the movies and TV shows I grew up watching were primarily American, I want to say I watched far more British reality TV. Probably not really mainstream shows but really random and odd ones along the lines of “Rich Family Poor Family.” (How sophisticated, I know.)
But that’s besides the point. For some unknown reason, my parents had sent me an obscene amount of money to spend on that trip, and so spend it I did. I really enjoyed all the best England had to offer. Retail therapy and museums and Michelin stars. Plays and concerts and musicals to my heart’s content. And sooo many Ubers (now that’s fancy). Every day there was pure bliss; I had all the freedom in the world.
To quote Taylor Swift’s London Boy: “Home is where the heart is / But that’s not where mine lives.”
I don’t think I can ever stop thinking about where I would be now had everything been different. In my head, my parents agreed for me to study abroad from the beginning. And I would have chosen to go to England instead of America. And grandma and I would live in a cute little flat or townhouse, and she would make breakfast for me every morning, and then we would go out for tea every weekend. And I would be best friends with people I barely speak to now. And all is well.
But for now, I’ll come back at every chance for a taste of what could have been.
