Right now, I’m sitting on a couch in Oxford in a house that is not mine, sipping black coffee and thinking. I have 4 days before I leave the UK for the last time. I’ve already written a post about how I feel about leaving Oxford, so I won’t rehash that. I want to talk about something a little more specific, namely my house. I call it my house, because although it never really belonged to me, it FELT like mine. It felt like home. And I suppose that’s natural. Aside from on campus housing and my brief spell housesitting, this was the first time I’d really lived on my own, not even having even the option to go home on the weekends or even to call. A dorm room doesn’t feel like home. Neither does a constantly dark apartment whose living room is occupied by your Moroccan suite mate who doesn’t like sharing a room and whose temperature is constantly fluctuating between 50 and 85 degrees.
Something was different about this house, something I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it was the environment. Aidan has been a constant element in all three, but Katie and Clare, though new additions, were more amiable companions than my suite mates of the past. They were certainly more present than their predecessors were. I think have grown quite accustomed to hearing Clare singing Beyonce and Nicki Minaj songs at the top of her voice and morning talks with Katie after she got back from her run. I’ve gotten attached to our little study nook in the sitting room, to the way the sunlight hits my bed in the morning, to cooking dinner with Brittani, Kalie, and Stephen next door. I’ll never wake up in that bed again, cook on that stove, or read on that couch. Never again will I bump over that pot that held the loose board to the fence, never again will I smell the fresh rosemary growing by the door as I fumble for my keys. And for some reason I don't quite understand, these realizations sadden me.
The house had it’s problems. The lock stuck, the shower leaked, the boiler was finicky, and the internet was inconsistent at best. But I loved it despite these imperfections, or maybe because of them. This is the first place I ever had Thanksgiving away from home, the first place I ever roasted a chicken or turkey, or baked a pie on my own. I miss already the noises and smells and sounds that accompanied my daily routines, and it felt very strange when I had to retrieve my luggage from my room. All the dishes and food and linens and appliances and other things were all packed up in boxes that lined the wall by the doorway, and the place felt very different. It seemed as though the place had never been lived in at all. It was. . . dead. Deserted. I felt like I was standing in a tomb, not the place I had made my home these past 6 months. I didn’t like the feeling. I still don’t. Soon I’ll be back in the house I grew up in, and it strikes me how much people like me like to create a false sense of permanence about things like this, whether it’s about people, homes, school, jobs, cities, or whatever other thing you can think of to fill in the blank. When we find something we care about, we can’t stand the idea of losing it; can’t stand the idea of it no longer being there in our lives. Growing up in Newnan, it felt like life there would last forever. High school on the first day felt like it would be much longer than the short 4 years it turned out to be. Already I feel like my time at Mercer has flown by, and my hiatus in England is already gone. Nothing in my life, not even me stays the same for long. It’s a scary thought. Maybe that’s why people like for me look so desperately for permanence. We aren’t afraid of eternity or the permanent, we’re afraid of the idea that everything will continue with us and pack us up in boxes like a bunch of old dishes, put us in the ground, and forget about us. People can go crazy thinking about it for too long.
Something was different about this house, something I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it was the environment. Aidan has been a constant element in all three, but Katie and Clare, though new additions, were more amiable companions than my suite mates of the past. They were certainly more present than their predecessors were. I think have grown quite accustomed to hearing Clare singing Beyonce and Nicki Minaj songs at the top of her voice and morning talks with Katie after she got back from her run. I’ve gotten attached to our little study nook in the sitting room, to the way the sunlight hits my bed in the morning, to cooking dinner with Brittani, Kalie, and Stephen next door. I’ll never wake up in that bed again, cook on that stove, or read on that couch. Never again will I bump over that pot that held the loose board to the fence, never again will I smell the fresh rosemary growing by the door as I fumble for my keys. And for some reason I don't quite understand, these realizations sadden me.
The house had it’s problems. The lock stuck, the shower leaked, the boiler was finicky, and the internet was inconsistent at best. But I loved it despite these imperfections, or maybe because of them. This is the first place I ever had Thanksgiving away from home, the first place I ever roasted a chicken or turkey, or baked a pie on my own. I miss already the noises and smells and sounds that accompanied my daily routines, and it felt very strange when I had to retrieve my luggage from my room. All the dishes and food and linens and appliances and other things were all packed up in boxes that lined the wall by the doorway, and the place felt very different. It seemed as though the place had never been lived in at all. It was. . . dead. Deserted. I felt like I was standing in a tomb, not the place I had made my home these past 6 months. I didn’t like the feeling. I still don’t. Soon I’ll be back in the house I grew up in, and it strikes me how much people like me like to create a false sense of permanence about things like this, whether it’s about people, homes, school, jobs, cities, or whatever other thing you can think of to fill in the blank. When we find something we care about, we can’t stand the idea of losing it; can’t stand the idea of it no longer being there in our lives. Growing up in Newnan, it felt like life there would last forever. High school on the first day felt like it would be much longer than the short 4 years it turned out to be. Already I feel like my time at Mercer has flown by, and my hiatus in England is already gone. Nothing in my life, not even me stays the same for long. It’s a scary thought. Maybe that’s why people like for me look so desperately for permanence. We aren’t afraid of eternity or the permanent, we’re afraid of the idea that everything will continue with us and pack us up in boxes like a bunch of old dishes, put us in the ground, and forget about us. People can go crazy thinking about it for too long.
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