London Calling

I've been fantasizing lately about being in London again. I simply loved being there, and even more I loved the freedom associated with that great city. It was like suddenly realizing that the prison door was open after I'd been so accustomed to assuming its closure I forgot to pay attention. It seems like an awful thing to say about my life, but in some sense it's true - I had a child when I was young and spent my twenties raising a child alone, mostly in varied states of poverty, and limping along through my life with a few shining moments along the way. It's been difficult to be a student and friend to others who are single and child-free (or at least they were when my child was young); it's worse to automatically discount yourself from most things because babysitters are difficult. When most of my friends were having fun being young and traveling - Jennie got to live in Tokyo, Pam trekked through the Amazon, Charly went to Spain, Van to Sweden, etc. - I was confined to a few days here and there of personal freedom and could rarely afford to go far. People who went on study abroad programs incited downright bitter jealousy in me.

Going to London last fall just for me and by myself was immensely rewarding, as I've gone on and on about in previous entries. Now there's an opportunity to go again this fall and even though I really can't afford it, part of me says fuck it, just go. When will such an opportunity arise again, when people I know are going to be there, I have disposable student income, and a sense of how I owe myself this after fourteen years of almost perpetual struggle. Not that life is a cake-walk now, but it has certainly changed directions drastically in the last few years for the better. I want to smell the London air (even though it's not always pleasant), travel by foot and tube, keep wonky hours, eat cake in the afternoon, and walk about in museums like I have nothing better to do. I want entire days devoted to exploration and wandering, to breakfast porridge and coffee in Russell Square and lunch while walking along the river to Tower Bridge, to Paki curry dinner in the part of the city one should not walk through unattended at night and where people still eat "eel pie." Blech. I still want to go to Cambridge and Canterbury, and I must remember this time to take a hair dryer, wash cloth, and fewer clothes. Jamison will feel slighted if I go, and part of me feels guilty about this - it doesn't seem fair that I should be able to afford to go when he cannot (and oh yeah, not once but TWICE) in a year's time, but it's not about him. I don't mean that in any kind of snotty way, either; as a person without children, he's always had the ability and freedom to do as he wished - to travel, move around the country, party, follow the Dead, drink and smoke, whatever - when I rarely did. Now that my child is older and I have the time, money, and ability to be a little selfish, I feel entitled to that, even briefly, and that's nothing personal against him. It's something I want for me, and I haven't gotten to say that very often in my life except perhaps for my school career, and since that involves work, it hardly counts as purely selfish.

I don't regret parenthood and I adore my daughter. Today is her fourteenth birthday and I couldn't be prouder of the young woman she's become. She is lovely, refined, and self-assured. Well-adjusted. Brave. Intelligent. Wickedly funny with a penchant for silliness. I cannot wait until she's old enough and willing to travel with me.