"And on these sleepless city nights, I'm just a shadow beneath the streetlights..." 

"I was cynical towards miracles
Until I realised you could lift me with your eyes."

How lucky I am. Despite my sad eyes, I'm so lucky. And actually difinitively happy. (believe me?)

I watched the sunset the other evening. I forgot how beautiful Michigan is in the late summer. Absolutely breathtaking.

I made Margaret cry the other day. I met with her and briefly shared with her my experience of London. Tears filled her eyes when she looked me dead in the eyes and said, "I bet that woman will never forget you. And she probably will keep that shirt you gave her child forever." That hit me hard and for the first time since I've been home I honestly cried about the 7th. I couldn't help it when I saw that woman's eyes when I closed mine.

Well, survived the first week back unscathed. Oh, wait. That's not funny at all is it? *shakes head* Anyway, yes, survived the first week. Being back at Albion is both strange and comforting. I missed a lot about this place. Mostly the people who are home to me, but even parts of campus gave me a great feeling when I came back. The theater, the coffeehouse, delt sig, even the quad. So many memories here. It's very odd to be a senior, but at the same time I think I'm ready. I need to get outta here soon lest I go mad.

My classes include 20th cent. theater w/Starko, Public Relations (which should be a piece of cake after this summer right?), Shakepeare with Dr. Crupi and Ceramics. Shakespeare is an amazing class.. I can already tell it's going to be wonderful. I mean, hard work, absolutely. Reading a new play every week, quizzes on content, character and quotations weekly. It's going to be difficult (I know this after having failed my first quiz), but at least it's stimulating. A class I honestly love going to. Plus Crupi's just a riot. I mean, I loved him as a director but as a prof, he's just in his element. And he's brilliant. And I'm in that class with Alisha which is awesome. I miss her a lot. She's living off campus this year and it's definitely.. different. I hope she's happy. Or at least on her way to happiness.

I made the brash but completely necessary decision not to be in any shows this semester. I need the semester away from commitment. At least theatrical commitment. I'll be doing a big project with a visiting director Michael Rohd, the last 10 days of the semester but other than that I'm laying low. I need to readjust to being here and give myself space to think.

I think I'm going to write a book. I had a dream last night that Margaret met with me and told me to write a book about my experiences in London as a thesis. And in my dream I got really excited and started laying out rough plans of how I was going to write it. I woke up confused and inspired. We'll see if that lasts. I'll let you know.

Talked to Laura Kraly yesterday. It was so good to giggle with her again. About silly cabana boys and snack cakes. God, I miss her.

I absolutely adore living with Jill. She's very laid back and we get along so well. We know when to talk and when to leave each other the hell alone. We've already established a tight bond of looking out for each other, but not to an excessive degree. We joke about all the sorority chicks in our house hating our guts. And we reminisce about the c-house and what this year will bring for the new managers. It's going to be an amazing year living beside her.

Ceramics will be good for me I think. I can just imagine me in the annex at 3am throwing some night that I can't sleep. I'm actually really looking forward to that class.

My sister's ridiculously unhappy, my mom's having seperation anxiety, and Ron's back in Iraq. meh, so life at home isn't exactly ideal. I'm glad to be here.

I miss Ron. A lot. But as strange as it is to say it, it was a little easier to let him go this time. I ran back three times to tell him I loved him, but I didn't cry.. Maybe I'm starting to understand him and what he's doing a little more. Margaret said London did that to me. I wonder if that's true.

We're already getting applications for degrees and graduation. Makes me want to pee my pants. And people are honestly asking me what I'm doing when I graduate. What do I say? I can't shake the part of me that will never forgive myself if I don't take the opportunity to go back to England.
Leave me your biggest fear as of now in the comments. I'm curious.

There's a word for it all. There must be a word for all of this. But I can't even begin to locate it... All I know is somehow I'm here. Back here. Almost where I began. However, I am not the same person I was three months ago. You may read these words now and smile. Finally she's come back. Finally she's decided to put some of her thoughts back here. That's what you expected. That I would go across an ocean and grow up. That I experienced the world to the fullest and came back here changed for the better with a new, happy and optimistic outlook on life. A traveler's outlook. Reality with an edge of relaxed "whatever will be, will be." It's more than that, dear. Much more.

In London I experienced the best and worst of life. All alone. In a country and city completely foreign with friends I only knew for hours, days.. instead of careful, sheltered years. That was the necessity. That was also the most painful and glorious part. Being alone. To see every moment, to experience every new and completely different second of life on my own. There's nothing that compares to that. Good or bad, it is what it is. And it is humbling.

I feel as though a novel should rest here. Pages upon pages of what I saw and how much London took hold of me. How I miss it more than I ever dreamed possible. How I left a huge piece of my heart there. How I will never be the same now being far away from there. But that's not what this tiny piece of the internet is for.

I will say this. I love London. I feel like in three months, I became a part of that city and it became an eternal part of me. I lived there. I coexisted with citizens of such a captivating city. I worked monday through friday with colleagues I began to look upon as a second family. I made my very first advertisements with gentle guidance and my adverts appeared in London magazines and even on a billboard under a train bridge (I almost got hit by a firetruck as I took photos of it the day it appeared, with tears in my eyes). I got offered a job for when I graduate to move back to London. I went to Live 8. Played mudslide rugby in a thunderstorm in Regent's Park. I celebrated my 21st birthday with the people I learned to love from all over the world and the fellow human beings who treated me like a sister and a best friend. After only a few days of knowing me.

I went by Rose. There I was known only as Rose.

I saw some of the most beautiful places I could've ever imagined. I kissed Irish soil for the first time, saw countless cathedrals, mountains, rivers, and even got to settle in for a sunset beside the Eiffel Tower. I saw the easy, laid back European lifestyle as well as the extatic pulse of large cities bustling with activity. I made four friends and travel companions I know I'll stay in contact with for the rest of my life. I made a handful of other amazing friends from Cambridge University who threw me a belated birthday bash there and insisted I come back to them when I graduate, if not sooner (and have drunk dialed me and called for hours of conversation countless times since my return home). The good things, the great moments that shaped this person I became.. those far outweighed the bad things. Those painted my experience as vividly as any dream.

And as for everything else.. the bad. The horrible. The nightmares I still have. Those defy written description. Perhaps one day I'll have the courage to write it. But I would feel terrible for anyone else to read it and even imagine some of the things I witnessed. The tube. The darkness. Bus No. 30. My bus. The blood, the pain, the fearful eyes that met mine. It's all still a little too much to bear. If you would like to know... ask. I'm not afraid to talk about it if you feel you want to hear it.

And now I'm here in Michigan. In my dark room starting my final year of formal eduacation. And where will I go from here? Heaven only knows. But I do know this. It's good to be home. *smiles gently*

Nothing short of hopelessly romantic... 

In a tiny church in Brookes, Georgia on the 8th of August... My big brother, my hero, married his Natalie. None of us knew and when he shared his plan and his noble necessity to make sure Nat was taken care of, none of us thought it would work. But somehow, with only one day to prepare, by some miracle it worked. And in what I thought was just going to be my last chance to see him before he left for Iraq, my brother made Natalie his wife and now... I have a new, beautiful sister to hold on to while my brother is fighting for all of us. Come home safe, Ron. Congratulations and I love you.