In recent months since my return to the states after studying abroad at Oxford University this summer, I have found adjusting back to my life at UMass…not easy.
As I reconnect with old friends, teachers and co-workers, I find myself consistently confronted with the question, “How was it?”
I have acquired a skill, as an English major, to know that less is more. Thus, I have shortened my otherwise, wordy, jumbled, comical, tragic, enlightening, story, to a simple statement, for which, despite it’s weighty connotation, can’t come close to describing my experience: “It was the best two months of my life.”
Maybe the only people who will understand this statement will be those whom are also reflecting on their study abroad experience, or maybe, the only ones who will understand are those who attended the Oxford Summer Seminar 2013 (love you guys).
I don’t know whether it was the timing of which I attended in my college career, the culturally rich place in which I studied, the diverse group of people whom I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by, or the person I spent the majority of my time with, but my study abroad experience was unparalleled.
Until now, I have found it difficult to find the words. Thinking about everything that happened, so soon after it happened, was far too emotionally overwhelming. While there, I hadn’t a moment to reflect in between studying original DaVinci sketches in Oxford, the City as a Work of Art; sipping on Pimm’s post High Table in the beer cellar; hopping between Purple Turtle, Camera and, Wahoo, but ultimately always finding ourselves smoking hookah and drinking fish bowls at Thirst; or jetting off on Ryan Air to Scotland, Ireland and…Italy.
I fell in love. I fell in love with a place, an idea, a lifestyle, a group of people and, a person. Maybe it was the near perfect weather that summer, for the rain that continually embraces England left us alone those six weeks. Maybe it was the constant appeal and dream-like quality of every Trinity College crested dinner plate in the Hogwarts-style dining room. Maybe it was you with your fat wallet, thick hair and rich heart.
But for six weeks, we lived life outside of ourselves; outside of the University of Massachusetts; outside of our regular group of friends; outside of our pre-conceived ideas concerning who we were.
Who we were doesn’t really matter anymore, who we became that summer is all we have left.
Throughout my life, all I’ve ever really wanted was to feel close to someone. I never imagined the time that this would actually happen would be thousands of miles away, across a little pond, far from anything that may have felt familiar, any place I ever called home, or anyone I ever called a friend.
A type of intensity forms, fast and fleeting, in relationships and experiences forged from these pretenses.
Everything was new and, scary and, exciting. It was 100% about the present, a complete disregard of the past or the future. We took risks. We did things we would have never considered, from befriending people completely unlike us to drinking Absinthe in dark dance clubs. In this place, there existed no such things as a comfort zone, and from that, the most comfortable and natural and beautiful thing arose.
In a foreign land, the only people we had were each other, and we held on tight.
The difficulties in speaking about our experiences arise here, in attempting to relive and recreate. This can’t be done. Returning to The Real World, everything was a bit confusing. It was like…I had woken up from a dream, with large chunks missing because I was too busy feeling to actually remember, with experiences too surreal to have actually happened.
Running into people still doesn’t feel right, like the characters of my dreams have jumped out of my mind and materialized in real life.
That boy you left at the airport in Rome would stay there forever.
Thinking about these experiences, thinking about you, I can’t help but question if it was real.
Were the bonds we built, the memories we made, the photographs we took, all idealized by just that – the idea of them? I never felt so free; so high; so exposed; so loved; so happy; so…utterly and completely heartbroken.
The Oxford Summer seminar had an end date. We promised nothing would change and we were consciously lying. We changed the day we arrived and the day we departed. We changed every day in between. We are changing as we speak; I am changing as I scribble these words.
We like to look back and miss it, and to look forward making plans to do it all again, to visit the historical sites we studied in our courses; the glass door through which Sam’s head was slammed; the room in staircase 14 where Preston taught us how to “cook;” the well manicured lawn where we toasted, and rolled, and posed, and said our final goodbyes.
But the truth is, we can’t go back, and I’m okay with that, because it happened.
People are constantly saying, “Oh wow, you went to Oxford, you must be so smart.” I learned a lot in those six weeks, I took classes with internationally known authors and professors, but the most life changing thing I learned at Oxford University was the importance of living in the moment, because those moments, that summer, is something we will never, ever, get back.
I fell in love with a place, an idea, a lifestyle, a group of people and, a person, but most importantly, I fell in love with myself. For across that pond, down every road that I got lost, I found myself, a little closer to who I’m meant to be.