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A week on

This time last week I got to my car in the economy long-range lot at Dulles after a week away in England. I didn't have too much disorientation adjusting to being on the left hand side of the car, and I didn't have too much sadness about being back in the United States. I was looking forward to seeing my children and looking forward to getting back to work. 

At this moment I'm sitting in a meeting listening to people say things. I have to take some of those things and turn them into a story at some point in the next four hours. I'm sure I'll be able to get it done, but the first pangs of sadness have hit me that nothing exciting is planned for my life for a long while. 

I'll be working a lot the rest of the year. There have been some changes which have eliminated almost all disposable income. I'm having to watch every single dollar. I won't be going out anymore except when I work at Court Square Tavern. I won't be spending money on clothes. I won't be able to save up much for another trip to England. I have to work every single hour that I can find just to avoid losing my house. I'm closer than ever to a financial catastrophe.

But you know what? I'll be okay. I'll continue to be single, continue to learn to embrace my life of solitude. Because I have the beginnings of a goal and the hint of what the next stage of my life will be. I want to find a way to connect my American and English lives, especially when I can still remember what it felt like to be there last week. I'm trying to imagine new ways of getting to travel there, trying to find some way to make my dream of spending more time there come true. 

The bottom line is that even though I've lived in my community for over 13 years, I don't feel home here. I feel like I'm part of it, but I feel like I'm a visitor here and not a full participant. Maybe that's because I sit in a lot of meetings and I have to keep my thoughts to myself. 

I don't feel at home in England, either, and I don't know if I would ever be permitted to move there. 

I just want to explore why I feel this way. Why I want to live a life in both areas, why I want to study these issues. I can't articulate it anymore than that, but I wanted to post something about this new feeling of restlessness that may have just begun. 


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