It's true, I returned to the UK four months and five days after I left.
I was greeted with "Welcome home!", and "At last, you've returned to us."
People kept asking, "How does it feel to be back ?"
I feel as though I have been on a summer study holiday in California and have just come back to the reality of cold air, angry commuters, high prices and traffic congestion. It feels like only a few weeks have passed - those months I spent sequestered studying and passing the clinical licensing exams in California are all compressed into a smaller memory block.
As I sat on the old familiar fuzzy seats on the Piccadilly line from Heathrow, I felt grateful for the comfortable flight, the empty train car, and my old functioning Oyster card.
It was only a short visit (3 days in Bristol; 7 in London). I wasn't able to see all of my friends, or even half of them. But that is what I have encountered for the past decade of traveling back and forth to the US. I am well rehearsed in the art of short-stay-meeting-up coordination and inevitable sacrifices.
Nothing much seems to have changed in the UK. The air, chill, and hard water were always hard on my skin and sinuses, and that all came flooding back within a few hours of landing.
While I miss the ability to see friends here more regularly and eating at my favorite restaurants, I can't say that I really miss the UK yet. If anything, I was reminded of the reasons I left.
For now, I am very confident I made the right move. I felt reminded of this when seeing the overflowing display of bags of crisps in every shop, adjacent to the rows and rows of chocolate bars. The free 'news' papers with melo-dramatic headlines. The hideous UPVC windows everywhere. The passive-aggressive anger on public transport. The "should" and "should not" attitude. Jon Snow still on Channel 4. The bureaucratic red tape of trying to sort my pension transfer. The mediocre dental care. Royals spending money, reproducing, and adding nothing. Separate hot and cold water taps....
The things I take pleasure in, such as my favorite parks in decent weather, my favorite galleries, seeing friends, dining out, and knowing that Paris is only 2 hours away on the Eurostar are the brilliance of living in London for me.
What was most wonderful about my return visit was seeing friends and feeling welcomed home - like I belonged there.
I am grateful for and proud of my citizenship. I did, after all, spend a decade of my life there (plus my student terms abroad in the early 90s).
Towards the end of my visit, I realized something that stopped me in my tracks: the UK is still 'home' to me now, more than California, where everything is still temporary (and I don't even know if I will settle there). I realized that I will never feel like a tourist in a place where I lived and worked for so long.
So I enjoyed the visit as a citizen and recent resident whilst still looking forward to the future, wherever that might be.
