The original idea of this blog was to document--for my many friends and former colleagues in Chicago--my experiences during a year spent volunteering for a church in Nottingham, England. Then I'd return to my life as a Chicago journalist, refreshed and reinvigorated after a year's adventure.
That was in the fall of 2007.
It is now late November 2009 and I am (ahem) still in England. Ooops. Here's what happened:
No, I didn't fall in love, marry a British man and settle down to a life of pastoral English bliss, making friends with the local village post man, butcher and tea shop lady while writing from my quaint thatched roof cottage and raising small, accented and thoroughly confused English-American children. Not yet, anyway.
Instead, I fell in love with a new country, a new career and a new way of life.
Despite all of the expected and understandable pain that came from leaving a job, friends and a city that I loved, I discovered when I arrived in Nottingham that I was being called into something new. I spent one year volunteering for Trent Vineyard church doing menial jobs like cleaning toilets, alongside not-so-menial jobs like feeding the homeless, listening to people's stories and teaching children. Meanwhile I continued to work as a freelance journalist for Sun-Times publications in Chicago, as well as developing unpaid reporting opportunities here in Nottingham.
After one year of this ridiculously difficult but immensely fulfilling life, I was asked to stay for a second year and do more of the same. So I did. Then, at the end of my second year, I was offered a full-time job at the church to train as a pastor and--armed with a religious worker visa--I realized that it was time to make a decision. Living with an uncertain future for two years had been surprisingly fun and freeing, but it had also been very trying. I turned 30 at the beginning of my second year here and as much as I loved the adventure, I began to yearn more and more for a settled home and sense of purpose. I felt I'd had one foot on either side of the Atlantic for a long time ... and as it's an awfully wide ocean, I was very tired of trying to keep that up.
And so, after much thought, discussion, prayer, tears and endless lists of pros and cons, I chose to accept the job and make England my home for the forseeable future. That was back in May, and after a six-week "farewell" visit to many of my friends and family all over the United States, I came back to my new home two months ago. I was immediately plunged head first into work, as I started training for the three new roles my new job entails. I've worked hard on making a life for myself here by developing friendships, pursuing hobbies, trying still to pass that blasted British driving test and spending treasured time with my English boyfriend. Yet I've continued to keep up some of my journalism work by writing for Chicago-area publications and also making regular guest appearances on BBC Radio Nottingham as a guest commentator.
I pause during my 3rd Annual Birthday Bonfire Party on Nov. 5, which also happens to be the English holiday of Guy Fawkes Night. For the third year in a row, my English "family" and friends honored me with a massive bonfire/fireworks party on my birthday.
This blog, then, will continue to serve as a travel feature in which I share tidbits from my journeys around Great Britain and other parts of the world. It will continue to be a place where I can share the comedies and tragedies of being American in a country that simultaneously reveres and despises America. But it will also serve as a space, I hope, that links me to my beloved Chicago.
Although I grew up in Arizona, I came to Chicago as a young woman and it was there that not only did my professional career crystallize but did my vision and voice. Look at this blog for links between Chicago and England; for voices from both sides of the pond examining the similarities and differences between our two formidable nations; for travel ideas and for windows into the ongoing story of my life as an expat. I've learned in the two years since I've kept this blog just how interested people are in the endless connection between America and its motherland, and I do hope the conversation continues.
As for me, I'm still known widely in these English parts as "American Steph," the girl whose accent has changed perceptibly over the last two years but who will never, ever shake off the place from where she comes. And that's fine by me. As I've learned again and again over the past couple of years, "home" is a very stretchy word that covers a lot of ground. I know now that I've never really left it.
wow, what a well-written article!!