Great Expectations

Perhaps the most alluring advantage of living in Europe is the ability and ease to travel. Going to and from Italy felt more like a daily commute than trip considering the travel time and pleasant lack of jet lag. Despite their proximity, the countries in Europe feel worlds apart based on the drastic contrasts in art, food, fashion, architecture, and sometimes climate. I didn't anticipate Florence to feel as different from London as it was, but when you think about it these two cities really don't have that much in common. Except that they're both fabulous.

Though it was nice to get out of London for a few days (sometimes you need a holiday away from your… well, I guess this little stint is a holiday), it feels really nice to be back – especially because now I’m feeling pretty refreshed, relaxed, and overall just happier.

I can understand how ridiculous that sounds. I’m living abroad, traveling at my leisure, with zero obligations to anyone but myself – tell me: how could I be happier? I know it doesn’t make sense. But sometime between my departure from and my arrival back to London, something clicked for me regarding my time here.

Removing yourself from a situation, or a location, can sometimes shed light in such a way that it elucidates a new perspective. And once I got back into my flat, it occurred to me that the whole time I’ve been here, I’ve been trying to create the London that I had imagined.

Allow me to paint you a picture: I imagined that in London I would spend my afternoons in cafes, drinking tea and eating scones, writing literature that would later be published and acclaimed and world renowned; I anticipated meeting Europeans at every corner, who would invite me to their homes where we would endlessly discuss books and art, allowing the wine to ignite and fuel tangent conversations. In London, I expected to find love – to find the kindest, most creative, intelligent and interesting man and who thought I was equally so, who saw all of my flaws and vices as the sheer fabric of perfection, who thinks my thoughts, where the negative space of his embrace called for my body, fitting too perfectly for there to be any doubt.

That was what I expected to find in London. I haven’t found it yet.

We are told to aim high. But I don’t think we realize that in building these high expectations, we are also erecting barriers and barricading portals to reality. Great expectations can be good, as long as they are grounded on a foundation of lucid thought. And that’s where I went wrong. I tried and tried to no avail turn the London of my reality into the London I dreamed of. And when despite my efforts, I was unable to make London what I wanted it to be, I was more disappointed and lonelier than before.

But what clicked for me upon my return from Italy was this simple idea that changed my entire attitude about London:

Stop trying to turn it into what you expected it to be.

At the moment, these dreams remain just that: dreams. They are things to aspire to and scenarios to fantasize about. But they all are attached to inklings of hope that perhaps one day, the picture of expectation I painted would be a mural of my reality.