July 26, 2014: Back in America

Since I've been home for a bit over a month now, I've decided to send out a quick update on what it's like to be back in my homeland.

Coming home was nuts, to say the least. After sobbing in the customs line, making my connect in JFK by under a half an hour, and nearly getting lost in the DC airport, I was greeted in Cleveland by my family, a beautiful "Welcome Home Ellen!" poster made by my little cousins, and my favorite foods from Taco Bell. I thought that my journey had ended at that moment, but little did I know, that was only the beginning of my next adventure.

When I first got home, I felt extremely isolated, but it's getting better. I'm still shocked by how loud Americans are and am hyper-aware of how much national pride our country has. There are times when I still say "pound" instead of "dollar," when I try to tell people that I'm "queueing up," and when I have to take a moment to figure out whether 8/11/14 means August 11th or November 8th. I'm still taken aback by how many flavors of Pop Tarts and Oreos we have, all of the lawyer adverts on the TV, and by the number of fast food restaurants that are on every corner. Things that once seemed normal to me now seem odd.

And England? I feel like it never happened. The best way that I can describe it is that I feel like I read a really good book or watched a really interesting film. If there weren't photographs of me in York and if I didn't get Snapchats from my friends over there, I wouldn't believe that it was real at all. In my mind, York, England is just as real to me as Hogwarts is.

I'm also having a hard time talking about England without coming off as being pretentious. It's hard saying, "Oh, well when I was living in England..." without having a couple of people roll their eyes. I'm starting to learn to just not bring it up unless I'm with other people who have studied abroad and know what it's like.

People told me that when I study abroad, I'll discover who I am and find myself. They said that I would come home with a new outlook on life and have a better idea of what I wanted from this world. I wish that I could say that I experienced something like that, but I just didn't. If anything, I know less about myself now than I ever did. I mean, I know that I like to go clubbing, and I know that I like academic research, but what else? All that I know about myself now is that I still haven't discovered who I really am or what I am really meant to do.

I'm also finding myself getting more and more disinterested in the things that I once obsessed over. Like none of that even matters anymore. I'm definitely not the person that I was. But I still haven't found the person who I am.

Being in your 20s sucks. 

Whenever people ask me what England was like, I always come up blank. How can I possibly describe my experience there to anyone?! I didn't do a lot of traveling. I just did a lot of experiencing the culture. Chatting with people. Going out. Chilling out. Living. Explaining my life in England would be like explaining my life at home. I just can't. No one could possibly understand where I'm coming from.

Do I miss York? Yes. Very much.

Am I happy to be back at camp? Yes. Very much.

Do I want to go back to small town life at Wooster? We'll see.