Lauren left me. I am once again flying solo at the casa de Recken.
Sadcakes.
Really, she was never mine to keep - she was always just a rental - hanging out at my flat for a month after her sister left and before her work visa ran out. We always knew it would just be a month...but it went SO FAST!!! I feel like she just arrived and now she is gone again...off to the greener pastures of Switzerland, Italy and eventually home to the USA.
I really enjoyed having someone else around - way more than I thought I would. Lauren was so fun. She made me miss having a flatmate and that I like to have someone else in my space. It's more fun with two. When I came home last night after my weekend away it definitely felt a little bit more empty - part of me kept listening for her to come up the stairs.
I think the other part of it is that Lauren leaving represented the closing of a chapter in my London life. Her sister, Jess, came over to London within a week of me. Jess and Aaron were my family here. When they left a month ago, I didn't really feel the impact because Lauren was still around. Now with Lauren gone, I really feel it, and I look around and realize it's not the same place as when I arrived.
Jess & Aaron, Jen & Eric, Kate, Sean, Rob, Shaun, and even Cat have flown the London coop.
That's the thing about London, it's a transitory place.
Suzanne and I have often talked a bit about how our life here feels a bit like college...and I am not referring to all the beer drinking (though that does help the comparison). I mean in terms that everyone is here for a temporary time. No one lives here and does this forever. We work in a mobile business, in a mobile location, where people come and go after a few months or years. We have been shoved together for an intense and wonderful experience -- but we all know the momentum can't last forever.
People change, people graduate, people move on.
So Lauren leaving isn't just about Lauren leaving (though I do miss her dearly). It's a bookmark on a chapter of my London life that is now closed. It signifies the beginning of my own last chapter in London...an idea that saddens and thrills me all at the same time. I am the last of the ex-pats standing. - the others have all gone "home". 
5 comments:
I hate when people move on... although it is usually for the best, but I am the selfish one who gets way bummed out. So many good friends move on.
i know what you mean, even the english people we meet here all seem to have plans to go somewhere else (be it back home to whichever village they're from) or move to spain or italy or wherever. london is a really odd and sometimes lonely place.
in other cities you always seem to meet a core group of people who are from there and sort of sum up the essence of the place, but nobody really seems to be from london.
I can tell you for a fact - I'll be going back to London. I heart London and miss London with all of my heart :(
(oh yeah and the ability to make quick weekend trips to Paris and Versailles has a lot to do with that!!!)
That was a nice post. Although my time in London with you was very short, I too get sad when I think about all the great people I met there (the very ones you mention) that are no longer there. It is an experience that cannot be replaced, or even reproduced because many of the major players are gone.
Promise that when Richard and I come for a visit you (and J-Bro) will still take me out drinking!
Katie... :( Your blog has made me get all teary-eyed. I miss you and I miss London, but I am enjoying Italy at the moment. I, too, am nervous that this chapter in my life is closing and I am scared of the next one. Thank you so so so much for taking me under your wing and letting me be your "mento." I love you and miss you dearly... your long lost flatmate, Lauren
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