More than Fond Memories

It's official: I'm sitting in Terminal 5 at the Heathrow airport, and the sudden realization has come that I will NOT be returning "home" today from the tube stop at Gloucester Road or High Street Kensingtion; I will no longer be hopelessly fumbling for my Oyster Card before I hop on the 9 or 10 bus from High Street Kensington Station, nor will I ever alight at Gloucester Road again to find myself praying that the 49 bus will, for just this once, be coming our direction.

It's interesting how quickly and intensely our lives move onward.  For months you plan for and fantasize about your trip to London, and then suddenly you are there.  For one fleetingly brilliant moment, you enjoy your stay.  You live every second like you might never come back--because it's true--and then, just as quickly as the flame burned, it goes out.  And you find yourself sitting in the Heathrow Airport thinking, "I just wish I could've fed the birds in Hyde Park one last time!"

As I was reading one of my fabulous friend's blogs about her farewell to London (her name starts with a J and ends in Ane Anne Jackson), I realized that my time is up.  My time in London has come and gone! How quickly 6 weeks goes by.  As I reflect on my brief but profound time here, I am struck with the unhappy feeling that my time in London, from now onward, will be nothing more than a fond memory.  It might be full of experiences too great to explain, and friendships too good to dismiss, but it's a memory all the same.

As I think of fond memories, I distinctly remember a conversation I had with my friend Mikayla almost 2 years ago: rewind time to December 2007, and I am in Hale 3, room 207C, sitting in a criminally small dorm room with my lovely South African roommate.  We're reflecting on how quickly the time has passed, and how, when, and if we will ever get to see each other again after we go our separate ways to separate countries.  Through our tearful discussion (which is laughably pathetic because we aren't even saying goodbye at this point), Mikayla turns to me and says, "I just hate thinking that one day all of this will only be a fond memory.  I don't ever want you to be that Jess--nothing more than a fond memory.  Because you are so much more to me than that."  

And yet, despite all of our wishing, that time in Hawaii can still be nothing more than a fond memory.  Luckily, though, Mikayla remains much more than a distant memory.  Although our friendship has changed, it lives on across the world, a fact I am arrantly proud of. Similarly, my time in London will forever be relegated now as a "fond memory."  But I'm starting to realize that the phrase "fond memory" doesn't have to be as painful and depressing as Mikayla once described.

Life is teeming with fond memories.  Every second we move ahead, grow a little older, gain more and more fond memories.  There's nothing to be done about the fact that life will inevitably move on, no matter how much you wish time could stand still.  So, I think the best thing we can do is forsake all our pining for the past.  It's gone! It's not coming back.  Instead, live life now.  Feed the birds in Hyde Park while you can.  Enjoy walking around London 'til your feet are sore.  Learn to laugh at all the struggles and mishaps that inevitably occur--they always make the best stories.  

Now my life is onto a new chapter, and I'm grateful for new chapters. They bring new opportunities.  Despite what I thought back then, how grateful I am that time did not stand still that day in Hawaii.  If it had, I could never have come to London.  If time had stood still then, Mikayla would not be getting married in the Johannesburg temple this July.  Despite my foolhardy wishing that time could stand still for me to appreciate my time a little more in London, it's gone, and that's okay.  I still have so many blank pages on which to write my story.

Bring on the 7 hour flight ahead! Bring on the dramatic and intense change from my London era to the next, whatever that may be!  There is still so much of life ahead, and all of it can be enjoyed.  Life is so good! Take every second in, relish every moment of every chapter so you can look back and think, I am content.  I can look back at all these fond memories and noteworthy chapters and realize that I made the absolute most of them.  I cherished every line on every page.  And now I will go on filling the pages ahead...