In just over two weeks I will hand in my major project and freedom will commence. After spending most of July and the first part of August locked in the computer lab, I'm pleased the ebook files I've created are working! Earlier today I was able to read one of them on an iPad...very gratifying.
I'll be leaving England and flying back to Seattle on September 20th...a bittersweet prospect. But I have most of September to say my goodbyes and pack in as much travelling as possible, including just over a week in Ireland. I'm going to take a two-day horseback riding trip around the Dingle Peninsula, then spend a few days in Dublin, Belfast, and surrounding areas.
On the day I fly out, I will have spent exactly a year and a day in England. Oxford will never again be just a word on a page -- I know it now. And part of me will never really leave -- or maybe it's better to say part of it will never leave me. You can never really go back once you've been so touched, so changed by a place. Although changed might not be the right word. Renewed, reborn, restored to what I thought was lost and dead.
Before I left the States I wrote a post about time and how it puts more distance between me and my best memories while carrying me into unknown trials. In those months I dimly guessed that there might be good things ahead, but in my mind they would never live up to what was gone. If only I could have known how every joy of the old days would be swallowed up and fulfilled in what lay ahead.
I will not fear time again. It might bear me away from Oxford, but I'm still on my way home.
Switchfoot says it better.
