Can I go home now?
May 18, 2002 ~ 10:11 p.m.
Went out to have dinner in the Beckenham Rat & Parrot pub tonight and, as luck would have it, found ourselves sitting across from a group of Americans.
They were talking in unselfconsciously loud voices so that I could hear the content of their discussion. Some of it was office-type gossip, but then one of the men said, �So the Nets are in the Eastern Conference Finals, who�d have thought. I mean, Bill,� he said, nudging his buddy, �can you believe that? The Nets?� Then �Bill,� or whatever his name was, said he�d been to ESPN.com to check the latest sports news.
Suddenly, I wanted to just collapse from homesickness. I can see that I�ve accepted life here � at least I no longer to into near panic-attacks at the thought of being here, as I used to do in the early days � but it�s apparent from tonight that it�ll never go away.
I miss having buddies to talk sports � good, real American sports � with; talking about the Nets reminded me that I�m missing being able to watch my beloved Celtics take on said Nets in the Conference Finals; I miss nightly baseball games (the Boston-Seattle game that I taped last Sunday from Channel 5 is the first game I�ve seen for nearly a year); and, more than anything, I envied their accents which are not coming under threat of changing like mine is, and their plane tickets back home.
Worse than anything was the feeling that although this was a group of people I could identify with in an instant, I couldn�t just approach them out of the blue. I longed to be part of their conversation, but for the sake of keeping up appearances of sanity, I had to keep it to myself and just be content with eavesdropping.
�How do you know they�re not students and here for a few years?� my wife asked when she noticed the dour look that I was no doubt wearing and I told her what was wrong.
Oh, real simple, isn�t it? Here�s someone who has zero idea what it�s like to be away from the land, language and life you�ve always known, loved and thought was normal, and she�s telling me that they could be here for just a few years. Life can be so simple to those who've never known sacrifice.
Put it this way: If I knew I was going home after only a few years, I�d be psyched. But I am probably here for the rest of my life. And in my mind, life in England will always be �home,� but not home.
And I want to go home.
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
AMERICA FOR TRUE AMERICANS!