It’s
really hard to believe but I’ve just realised that on 02.09.2012. was 20 years
of my first visit to England ever! I’ll never forget that day, the English sky,
the wind, the scent of England and the feeling when I stepped out of that plane
“finally at home”. It was so strange, it was my very first time abroad, my very
first time in England, and there I was feeling so overwhelmed with joy and
feeling of safety, home and belonging. Straight from the plane, still on the
border.
I went to
England through some “strange” circumstances, back then I thought all was just strange
series of coincidences... Lots of years after I’ve learned that the are no such
things as coincidences and that it was all meant to be. Sometimes I wish I knew
it already back then. But I didn’t.
My escape
to England was created mostly out of desperation I was living and going through
for many years, especially for at least one year before travelling itself happened
at all. Lots of times in my life I felt so down and so desperate, and that
period was the darkest of all, definitely.
So I moved
to England with no money at all, no contacts, no plans, nothing at all. I had
nothing, and I didn’t fight it. I knew there was nothing to loose and I
completely surrendered to it. Now I know that surrender itself was the key of
all those beautiful things that happened to me there. I stayed in England for
two years. I was born there again (so true!) and I lived for 2 years
really, the rest is suffering because of this or that but it’s always
something.
England
welcomed me and embraced me so dearly from the very first second, that for the
whole 2 years I asked my self was I dreaming. I couldn’t believe it was
happening to me. “Too good to be true...” sort of mindset.
I left
England as I had to, my visa expired, I did try to do something about it but it
was all so complicated. I cried at least for the whole month before leaving,
every single day, my world was falling apart and I was so lost again. I thought
I should move to Italy for a while, learn Italian and continue to be happy
there, why not? And so I did. But: as much as Italy was (is) beautiful and all
that I did not like it at all. There I was, in beautiful Florence, learning
Italian but I hated it, I couldn’t stand it, I missed England, I missed my
English friends, I missed Oxford, I missed my life!!! There in Italy I felt
into deep depression, I lived there in pain and suffering, complete dark and it
was all so unbearable. I developed such depression and desperation. I was
overwhelmed by feeling of being homesick for Oxford and England in general, and
there was nothing to be done about it. Feeling was more tense and more stronger
every day, day by day I was feeling worst and worst.
I was desperate
for help, for some answers, but I didn’t know where to ask? How to ask and to
whom? There I was with no religious background therefore could not turn to
prayer or such as I did not know how to do it and all that seemed so ridiculous
to me anyway. I had no clue what should I do to pull myself out of it. I was
desperately longing for some answer, some sing from I have no idea whom, I was
on the edge. Completely lost and completely hopeless.
Than one
evening my Italian landlady who had two little boys I was looking after and led
English conversation with came to me handing me one very old English textbook
which was her textbook back from her schooldays that were long gone already.
She told me to look into and through it, I might find something interesting to
teach her boys, you never know. When I was alone again that night I opened up
the book on a random page and there was a text that invited me to stop and read
it carefully:
When you come back to England
from any foreign country, you have immediately the sensation of breathing a
different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to
give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass
is greener, the advertisements are more blatant. The crowds in the big towns,
with their mild knobby faces, their bad teeth and gentle manners, are different
from a European crowd. Then the vastness of England swallows you up, and you
lose for a while your feeling that the whole nation has a single identifiable
character.
And above all, it is your
civilization, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you
will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and
the red pillar-boxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours,
you belong to it, and this side the grave you will never get away from the
marks that it has given you.
OMG!!! I was so stunned while
reading those words. I immediately had the sensation that indeed it was someone’s
message for me, answer to my suffering, my homesickness for England, someone
was watching over me and sent me that book with that particular chapter by
George Orwell, in that particular moment I knew I was not alone and was so
grateful for it, for the message I got even it was not of the best one, but it
was clear and I understood and excepted it as it was and as it came to me.
We are never alone. Signs and messages are always and everywhere around us. All we have to do is to be aware and allow it to reach us. Let it come through.Let it come to us. And trust.
