Homesick

Good morning! Today I'm homesick. Although it is most certainly weird to use that word, home, when speaking of the UK so I'm not sure what would be a better an alternative.

I just miss it all like hell.

I miss dark pubs in the Westcountry and the radioactive smell of vinegar on fish and chips. I miss the brooding skies and the seagulls and the knife-like winds, the mean jokes between friends. I miss my self-destructive, racist family and I miss the London Underground. I miss the...okay maybe I don’t miss much about Plymouth at all. But England, as an idea, as a concept, is something I long for.

I know I have an odd relationship with the UK. It’s always been a place that I’m running away from, a place to abandon in the middle of the night. Especially with Brexit where I fundamentally disagree with almost everyone about the subject. And those that I do happen to agree with are far too scared to fight for what’s right, for what is just. God it still makes me so angry that I want to tear up my passport and say good riddance.

Unrelatedly, I miss how stubborn British people are. I miss how everything is terrible all the time and everyone knows it. I miss cobblestone paths and red brick buildings and being entirely alone and sad in London. I fondly miss the way British people cuss; a magic power that only they can wield.

I suppose that’s one of many reasons that leaving the UK was a good idea. Now I can return with a map in hand, casually dropping American slang everywhere I go as my Westcountry accent slowly fades and I become a tourist in my own home.