November 5th: To miss

Miss (verb)

      -  to notice the absence or loss of.

      -  to discover or regret the loss or absence of.

I was having a look through my old Tumblr posts just now (just one of the timewasting methods in my highly developed repertoire of procrastination), and I stumbled upon a few posts that I wrote around this time last year.

One of them was talking about 'home', and how much I missed it - if not the place itself, but the familiarity of it and the occasions it was once home to. I talked about missing college; about the days I spent with my friends, happily ensconced in its routine. We had so many good times during those two years. But as I read that post, I thought about college, and I realised that though I still look back on it fondly, I no longer miss it. If I was offered the chance to go back there, I wouldn't take it. So much has changed since then, and I am not the same person I was when I attended college; or rather, I am, but the new, improved version.

Now, when I read that post, I think of last year. While I was living last year, I was comparing it to everything that had gone before; now, I am living this year and comparing it to the one I 'complained' about last year. I miss York, but I am absolutely certain that I'll do the exact same thing next year, when I'm back in its cold (but beautiful) clutches, wondering if Spain was real or whether I just dreamt the whole thing up.

Human beings. We're never happy, are we? I really love it here; there is a huge part of me that would never leave if she had her way, and yet I'm still thinking - not exactly favourably, but extremely fondly - upon my first year of university. It's almost like I'm wishing I were back there again, just so that I still had all of this to come.

But now I have two homes. York and Tarragona. Both places where I've made a life for myself independently. Reading is the place where I grew up, but I don't consider it home, not like the other two. York and Tarragona are places where it makes me happy to be, places I miss when I'm away from them - and if that's not home, then what is?

Most of the time, Tarragona feels like home to me. Right now, though, I think York is winning just a little. Autumn is my favourite season in England, and lovely as it is here, Spain just doesn't do it like the Brits.

Molly x