You know those dreams you have with your friends when you're little? The ones about living together and having your dream jobs and getting to hang out everyday and having your children be best friends. Or the ones about traveling the world together?
London was Zoe and I's dream. We don't know exactly when we first started our obsession, but it happened sometime around 8th grade. By then we had already been friends for two years, and we had recently discovered our favorite British Youtubers. At some point, while listening to these distant people talk about their distant lives, we separately decided we would go to London and jointly decided to be there together. It was just a dream though, along with our fantasies of holding a ball on our twenty-first birthdays (which are only 2 weeks apart) and our thorough escape plan for if we ever wanted to run away from home (we bought a tent and had the route planned on Google Maps).
Soon, I had become a fan of Doctor Who, Merlin, Sherlock and other BBC shows, and Zoe had started following even more British vloggers. We joked about the things we would do when were got to London, like somehow miraculously run into our favorite vloggers and actors (maybe even the Doctor himself). When Zoe moved into her new house at the end of high school, she got a huge map of the tube in her room. Last year, when we already knew I would be studying in London, she bought us matching leather bracelets. Mine said "Some Day", and hers said "In London".
When I signed up to study abroad in London, I urged Zoe to sign up through her university. It seemed our dream would come true, but Zoe had transferred to her third university by then, and she wasn't allowed to study abroad there yet. Just before I left, she came up with a solution: she used her savings to pay for her plane tickets and her parents agreed to pay for the rest of her travel expenses.
She would come for her Spring Break, which was last week. And she came. And our dream finally came true.
Honestly, picking her up from Heathrow was a bit of a daydream. I could hardly believe it was happening. But the rest of the week went by in a blur. She was sick when she got here, though recovering. We did all the usual touristy things, and walked until our feet swelled, and then walked a little more. We went to Paris, which was rainy and equally amazing and beautiful and breathtaking. When we got back from Paris, I was sick, too sick to go to class. We relaxed for two days so that I would be well enough to see one of our favorite Youtubers perform as Eponine in Les Mis on Friday night. Saturday we went on the Eye and walked around Westminster some more. We alternated between talking all night and immediately passing out.
Before I knew it, Sunday was here. We woke up and got ready. She packed her things and we headed to the airport. I joked that she could conveniently miss her flight and spend the rest of my time here with me. She wished.
But after hugging her goodbye and watching her walk to security, I got back on the tube and thought about all the people I missed from home. I have always been independent, and I have only recently ever experienced homesickness. I laid in my bed the rest of the day and watched movies, emotionally exhausted.
Zoe and I finally got to live our dream, and it made me realize (again) how much I miss home. Realizing our dream made me recognize that dreams are best dreamed with others, better experienced with others, and so is ordinary life. I had never been homesick before because I had always been experiencing life with those I loved most, and never gone for long.
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