I'm in the middle of getting together my work for my Portfolio Review that I have coming up in about a month, which is stressful enough, but I've also been scouraging for information on internships, which I need to discuss with our director sometime next week in a meeting, and as suddenly as last week I've been hit with the urge to do an internship abroad this summer.

I mean, early in the fall I was planning on trying to do an internship abroad, but then around Sept. till now, I guess the idea had just fallen into the 'not realistic' category. Which I despise, because I constantly try to tell myself that anything is possible (note the heading of my blog) and believing in that is the reason that I'm here, that I left Nebraska, that I'm pursuing the studies I'm pursuing, that I lived in another country for four months for god's sake. So why, when I'm suddenly faced with career/life settling decisions (at least that's what Internships feel like to me; the first step towards starting real life) would I give up on that and decide it's just not what people do. Obviously I'm not 'people'. It might be the rougher path, but if I could do it, why in the hell wouldn't I?

I'm still kinda torn between making up my mind if this is something I'm seriously considering or not. Realistically, I should go home and work this summer, and save money for post-graduation life, do an internship in St. Louis next fall, so that I can actually already be living here and making it easy. But there's still part of me that wants to go do one this summer, even if it's not abroad, in somewhere like Chicago, Austin, or Denver. Of course the main problem with those is expense. I've done the whole living on my own for a summer, which required working 2 jobs. And if the internship I get doesn't pay (like most) I would have 3, and things would still be tight. But it'd be an adventure. Something I think I dream to often about.

Or perhaps this whole craving the exiting experience of travelling and being completely surrounded by "new" has something to do with the girls visit a few weeks ago.

It's such a wierd thing, I'm still not sure I can even write about it. I mean, I absolutely LOVED seeing them. It was like a piece of me was returned, and I felt complete again. Or the person I was in London came back for a visit. Only she wasn't fully back, but present. Things still felt so odd, that they were here, with me (as well as the me that was born in London) and yet nothing was the same. As soon as they were around me, I wanted to go do the things that we did in London, and we couldn't cause we were in the middle of Missouri in a completely different country. There were no markets to shop, no ancient cathedrals to visit, no tube rides, and most definitely no pub walks. This is the part that felt odd.

I was so surprised at how normal it felt to be in the same room with them again. Abby seemed a bit different the whole week, but I'm sure she was having her own stresses hosting guests. Of course, I still felt bad that we pretty much did absolutely nothing while they were here. I know there's not much to see in St. Louis, and both Beca and Noel expressed that they just wanted to hang out with us, and we didn't have to do the whole touristy thing. But I just feel like for some reason some of our time was wasted by just hanging out in the apartment the whole time, watching movies. We should have done more.

Even though it felt completely normal in a way that they were there, I don't think it ever felt completely 'real', that they were in fact there, untill the last night when they were about to leave. While we all laid down for bed, for just a moment, I felt it. Because that feeling of them leaving, the same pain I remember rushing into me in those moments walking down to Reid Lobby the night they left London. If anything comes close to Deja-Vu, this was it. That exact same feeling had come back to me, just as strong as before, and hitting me with just as much shock as before, as to just how much these two women had meant to me, and how hugely my life was impacted by their friendship (Ha, I'm sitting here bawling about it now). Of course it didn't take long for Noel to somehow realize I was crying, because she came out of Lacey's room and just sat there hugging me for a while because "Steph is sad". Then after a few beats of laughter, it was gone. And we were off to sleep, back in Missouri, waiting till morning for their departure from St. Louis.

Another thing that happened after their visit was I felt a distinct seperation between, when I miss them, and when I miss London as a city. The whole experience is still all tied together of course, but before there were things that I missed or would feel nostalgic about, with all of the elements that formed my life there combined. I still feel like it was almost a 2nd life that I lived, though that one is permantly haulted in moving forward, but continues to float there in the distance as a constant reminder, and the one I returned to resume moves forward. But I still have the urges to revisit the city.

It's obvious that nothing would be the same, but then again, wouldn't it? Sometimes I just miss the feeling of walking outside on those streets; the energy of the city itself, as well as the people, buzzing around Leicester Square, or Picadilly Circus, none of them realizing their contribution to the atmosphere. That would still be there. The tube routes, the stores, the paths we took to get from one part of town to another, that would still be present in my mind. I probably know my way around London better than I do St. Louis.

One can imagine walking a city would give you that perspective though, as opposed to getting in a car, and paying no attention to anything but the road and the music your playing, in route from location to location, with no bother of the shops and buildings in between destinations. That's also part of what I miss. Just walking. Sure you can get out and walk here if you like. Chances are you may get from one suburb to another in a few hours, but there's no way you could go anywhere you wanted to go in the entire city, without a vehicle.

Look at this. I get on here to make a quick-ish post about business, and work, and what I need to be focusing on for my future, and it turns into a post reminiscing about the past. Will it ever go away? Or is this heartbreak the punishment London bestows on you for ever leaving it? It truly has its own persona, its own character. And like a bad break-up, leaves you with your regrets and your best memories.

The week with Beca and Noel seemingly brought some closure to that part of my London life, because we all exist here now. But it also re-inforced the fact that we'll undoubtedly see eachother again, and that in those magical months that for a while seemed like only a dream, were real, and indeed life-long friendships were forged.

Life is strange, and what humans create of it for the short time we live, mystifies me.

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