Homesick

/ San Francisco, California

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.