Homesick

My husband rode his bike through beautiful English meadows with cow pastures. I picked berries and apples from orchards to make crumbles with yummy, creamy custard. It was a beautiful LIFE.

I have been very homesick for England these past couple of weeks. The excitement of getting to eat at Chick-fil-A again, buying a gallon of milk, and not having to walk to the store in the rain is wearing off. And now I just want to go back to England where our lives were so "simple". I know that I am idealizing England and our way of life a little bit, but I am feeling our loss even more now that we are beginning to get settled again.

I am tired of getting into the car for the upteenth time and having to comparison shop. I just want to walk into town to Sainsbury's and the farmer's market to get food for our dinner that night. I don't want to worry about which store has the best specials, if I should drive to Sam's and spend the extra money on gas to save a $1 on milk prices, or think about which stores double my coupons and which ones don't. ( In England they don't even have coupons like we do here.) I feel like my life is so much more complicated in the US, nothing seems simple.

Our lives in England were the epitome of simplicity. It wasn't perfect; Brad had to eat his breakfast in the bathroom every weekday morning so as not to disturb our sleeping baby. But even with that small annoyance and other inconveniences, it was a beautiful life!

Our "world" was a little smaller because we couldn't get around with a car, but it also was so much easier. There were less decisions to be made, we just made the best with what we had. I love that. In America, we are just bombarded with so many decisions, and there is so much pressure to have more and more. In contrast, I feel like the English people I knew from our church were content with so much less materially. They worked less and spent more time with their family. They were a great influence on me, I feel like my priorities were changing for the better.

Its hard to leave that. For the longest time, I didn't even blog about us moving back to the US, because I wanted to wait to tell our blogging friends/ family when I was really excited about it. I am not sure I ever got really excited about it, but I knew that our time couldn't last forever in England and it was our time to come back to the US.

On the last day there, right as we prepared to make our journey to the airport, I sat on a bench and nursed my baby and looked at the place that had been my home for nearly two years. I had brought my baby home from the hospital to this little flat, had my first conversations with my first-born, heard her tell God her first prayers, served "biscuits" (cookies) with tea to friends on my pretty English rose tea cups, as well as wept many tears of sadness and joy in this home.

Our loss in moving from Cambridge was multi-faceted. I said "good-bye" to a special season of my life that I shared with my children and husband, good-bye to an incredibly unique life-style in the UK, and good-bye to some of the dearest people I have ever come to love. I miss it. Please keep praying for my heart. I thank God for blessing us with that time, and want to be content in all circumstances, I am just sad our time is now over.