Switched my flight from the 12th of December to the 8th; as much as I love Oxford, I'm ready to go home for a while. I'm at that point in the year where you start to burn out, the exhaustion alternately making everything seem a lot worse--or, and this is always the preferred result--you can't seem to care about much at all. I'm dragging myself through these last few assignments. It is definitely time for a break.
The notebook came today, which was a wonderful post-Thanksgiving surprise, though it wasn't a surprise so much, since I knew it was coming, but still. I had this idea this past summer to start a scrapbook/journal to keep the Gilbert Girls (the Sarah Lawrence loves of my life, plus a few equally treasured honorary members) consistently in touch over the coming school year, since Amy & I would be in Oxford, Marty was up at Smith, Eunice & Joanna still at Sarah Lawrence. Over these almost six months we've filled it with postcards & photographs & bits of writing, bookmarks & magazine clippings & favorite quotes. It's become a record of our lives, together when apart. The last time I wrote in it was August 26th. My brother had just left for school, leaving me to wile away almost a month at home. I was worrying about my mother, how she would do on her own, me in Oxford, Justin in Beijing. My internship was almost over & it was my last day at Children's Place, a fact I was celebrating. Things with Alan & Kira had just imploded, Joanna Ferrell's 21st birthday party had been a week or so before, and I was ready to take Oxford as it came. And now it's six months later. I'm living--and thriving--in a new country, more or less on my own. I've met wonderful new people & gotten closer to the old. I'm learning how to think differently & how to write differently. On the surface, perhaps not much has changed. But I can't help but think, at the end of this experience, I will only be the better for it.
"I am learning to be happy."--Eunice.
Aren't we all.
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