I keep expecting to see a familiar face around the corner of Broad Street and walking down St. Giles, but I don't because I'm alone. I've only ever been this alone once--in the confines of international terminals. This is what it must feel like to start over, to rip yourself from the past and put yourself in a new place for a change of pace. But what it does is brnig you to your knees in realization of how insignificant you are, how small.
For three days I wandered in and out of this feeling like a lucid dream. Sometimes, in the heaviness of this haze, Oxford sat brooding over herself like a pretentious fool and I wanted to leave her naked for the birds. But the city was too big and no matter where I went, I was the one being left: sitting in silence surrounded by strangers.
When I took a walk to Port Meadow by a canal walkway, the droning noises of cars and voices was replaced by wind rustling leaves. The water hole, which my classmates and I had made our own with our joy and our commeraderie and our love for each other, stood empty and seemed to bore a stare into my eyes with the message you are alone. I know, I thought, I can feel it in my bones.
Two more nights in Oxford and then I would be gone--who knows when I would return, if I ever would. This was jarring too, not because of the beauty I was leaving behind but of the life I had experienced here. After leaving Oxford, this life would remain only in memory, growing blurry with time until only faint images. Part of me longed to forget, and the rest knew I'd remember the subtleties: the patterned codes on all the entrances, the way the sky let all its water out whenever I went running in university park, the four white doors in a zig zag maze leading to the laundry room. But more than that, I'd remember almost forgetting the code to my door after my boyfriend kissed me good night, the writing that the rain inspired in me, and teaching classmates how to use their laundry cards. These weren't subtleties after all, though. They were memories of my little life, a little life that I'd been given.
Despite the pain of separation, I was ready at twenty to travel Europe--to see it through my own eyes.
He had promised when I came back, he'd be waiting for me. Until then, I was here. Alone and alive.
For three days I wandered in and out of this feeling like a lucid dream. Sometimes, in the heaviness of this haze, Oxford sat brooding over herself like a pretentious fool and I wanted to leave her naked for the birds. But the city was too big and no matter where I went, I was the one being left: sitting in silence surrounded by strangers.
When I took a walk to Port Meadow by a canal walkway, the droning noises of cars and voices was replaced by wind rustling leaves. The water hole, which my classmates and I had made our own with our joy and our commeraderie and our love for each other, stood empty and seemed to bore a stare into my eyes with the message you are alone. I know, I thought, I can feel it in my bones.
Two more nights in Oxford and then I would be gone--who knows when I would return, if I ever would. This was jarring too, not because of the beauty I was leaving behind but of the life I had experienced here. After leaving Oxford, this life would remain only in memory, growing blurry with time until only faint images. Part of me longed to forget, and the rest knew I'd remember the subtleties: the patterned codes on all the entrances, the way the sky let all its water out whenever I went running in university park, the four white doors in a zig zag maze leading to the laundry room. But more than that, I'd remember almost forgetting the code to my door after my boyfriend kissed me good night, the writing that the rain inspired in me, and teaching classmates how to use their laundry cards. These weren't subtleties after all, though. They were memories of my little life, a little life that I'd been given.
Despite the pain of separation, I was ready at twenty to travel Europe--to see it through my own eyes.
He had promised when I came back, he'd be waiting for me. Until then, I was here. Alone and alive.
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