My flights home have been booked.

By the time I leave, it will be exactly one year to the date I arrived.

It is serendipitous is it not?

And yet, I felt enormously big feelings in the process.

It feels too soon, too early, too close.

In less than four months I will leave the UK for good.

I will never be back in this moment. I will never have this exact experience again. I will never be able to return to this casual reality of London living.

The riding the train without paying attention to the scenery as though I have seen it a million times before, travelling to a completely new place on a whim for ridiculously cheap prices, connecting with friends as though we are already family because we are when we are so far from home.

The process of organising and booking my flights this week bought this reality to the forefront.

Life will never be the same again.

How will I return home? How will I fit back in? How will I continue with life as usual? How will I retain what I have learnt in my time away?

My anxiety and panic have built in the face of these questions. I wondered if I had picked the right date, if I should have waited another week, or maybe two. Tried to find acceptance and not berate myself for something I could not change.

At this moment, my brain thinks of home and instead of relief, I instantly imagine myself lying in the bed of my parents home, numb to my surroundings, listless in life.

It feels too early. Panic panic panic.

Breath.

I remind myself that by the time I leave the UK my lease would have been up for two weeks - where will I be staying in that time? Who knows, but what I do know is that I won’t be in the familiar and comfortable environment I have created for myself over the last several months. There will be little availability of my friends during the week when they are working so and I will have finished my dissertation a month prior. But perhaps, most importantly, I will have very little money to be frivolously spending or gallivanting about the country.

So with all of the above, what difference would an extra week realistically make?

It still feels like it has gone too fast. That this time has been too short. However, I have done, felt, seen, and experienced a great many things:

• I have created a routine for myself and have a better understanding of what small, daily practices work and help me to move towards my goals (e.g. I can be a regular gym girlie when there is literally a gym in my building).

• I have learnt so much about who I am at this age, living alone, and being single. I have learnt more about my menstrual cycle and my inner seasons. How I ebb and flow over the course of the month, and what I need and is helpful at different stages.

• I have trended more towards decentering men more than I ever have before, and I have been able to see how different I am to a past version of myself who used men for self-validation.

• My perspective on life has been broadened radically. The experience of living abroad, away from everything familiar, in a completely new culture (didn’t even realise there was a British culture) has widened my vision. I feel immensely grateful for this new knowledge and understanding.

• I have question things I want and things I thought I wanted. For instance, I feel more resolved in my desire to write; to bring to fruition the books and stories that sit within my head which have been further inspired by all of the new things I have seen in this time. I even started putting a book together, and I did not have before I came here.

• By the time I leave I will have also completed a whole Masters degree (WTF) and even before my final dissertation is completed, I will have done really well academically. Despite the logistics and administration making me angry (confusing and incoherent assessment outlines), there is some satisfaction at my ability to surpass the standards of Western academia (especially when I have failed a few other assessments over the last few years). Simueltaneously, I have learnt a great deal in this process, and made beautiful connections with classmates.

• I have also gained many new friends from around the world. Some who are from home originally but continue to live abroad, some who will return to the Southern Hemisphere at some point, and some who are from completely new areas of the world. These connections are forged through such a unique time in our lives that they will always remain special and different from any others that I have.

• I have also been lucky enough meet one of my bestest and closest friends here; a friendship that I had no idea could exist for me even though I saw it for others. Sleepovers, breakfasts, phone calls, and an innate, curious and compassionate understanding of one another and all the things in between. I am so lucky.

• But further, I feel incredibly grateful to have developed closer bonds with family. With my brothers, step-mum, and my biological dad (though I am still working through my feelings around this). Also with my cousins who I travelled overseas with, and have been able to see every other weekend, even though we were never very close growing up. It is a different kind of relationship with people who I know can never actually leave me (clearly reassuring for the old abandonment wounds).

• I have seen the sunrise almost daily. I have seen how the trees have blossomed and grown across seasons. I have touched soft snow, felt the hail from 15 storeys high, watched sunsets, and heard the sound of trains passing outside my window every single day. I have viewed the most amazing, thoughtful paintings (which I didn’t really have much interest in until I saw what Raphael and Micahelangelo were able to achieve with ample funding and support), seen the most beautiful architecture, regularly been awed by top of St Paul’s Cathedral and had moments of surrealness passing Tower Bridge on a casual Tuesday.

These are the memories that I will always have. These are the experience I have had. I have endless photos and videos to accompany them, and I feel an abundance of love and gratitude.

So my panic stems from feelings of it not being enough. Of not utilising my time to the best of my abilities. My panic stems from sadness from the loss of a particular time in my life, and the fear of the future unknown. But even with three months left, I have clearly spent the last nine wisely. I have had the most sweet and wonderful adventures, even during the challenging parts. I have trusted in the process, the universe and my ancestors endlessly, and if they were able to get me here, then of course they will hold me through this next transition.

I have done enough. I have seen enough, I have experienced enough, and I have trusted wholeheartedly.

What a beautiful ride it has been.

Anything beyond this is a bonus.

Breath.

Everything works out exactly as it is supposed to.

I am leaving the UK exactly a year to the date of my arrival.

I am returning home exactly a year to the date of my arrival.

Life will never be the same again.

Breath.