It’s been one year since I’ve been in England for my semester of Study Abroad at Oxford University. I don’t remember what I was doing on this day exactly one year ago-- but I probably have it written down in my Study Abroad journal back at home.
These days, I’m still in college. I’m still working towards the degree I’ll have at the end of this final semester of mine. I’m busy with schoolwork, with my friends and family, with my senior thesis . . . and yet I still will find myself having flashes before my eyes of moments I had while living in a city and studying in a college that’s older than my own country by centuries. When I walk to my classes on campus, I am overcome by a surge of nostalgia, of wanting more than anything to be walking towards the Bodleian Library or the Ashmolean Museum of Art. I constantly have to remind myself that I can't just . . . take a day trip back to Oxford the way I so easily am able to in my mind.
Although I was only in England for three months—and Ireland for four days—I’ve come to realize that I left a piece of my heart there. I tell my parents all the time that I can’t wait to take them with me the next time I go back. True, the experiences I had are ones I will never have again –-I will never be there with the same people, I will never live in the same flat, I will never sit with the same Oxford tutors I was blessed to learn from. But the longer I am in the U.S., the more I realize I have to go back. Traveling for three months made me realize how much of a world there is to be a part of, and how much I want to see it all, and how much I won’t be able to do that if I stay in America. The emotions I have that pull me back to Oxford are the ones I want to have for so many other far-away lands –-I want to leave a piece of my heart in those places too.
