Picture this: it is exactly 24 hours before I leave for London and I am sobbing. I know—not what you’d expect, right? Well my boyfriend of two years and I had just broken up. Perfect timing, huh? I had been dreaming of going to London for over seven years and there I was, walking back to my apartment with puffy eyes full of tears. I hadn’t packed yet, hadn’t printed out copies of my passport, hadn’t figured out how I was getting to the airport, nothing. I was stressed, unprepared and completely neglectful to the fact that I would be on a plane to a different country the very next day.
Suddenly, as if I was living in a perfectly-timed movie, I received a text from Bianca. Bianca is the girl in my class that I had decided to room with while in London. We didn’t know each other very well. We had “met” a few times before we took this class together, and we had talked about nonsensical things during the class, but it wasn’t much. Her text consisted of three questions: how was I getting to the airport, did I want to Uber with her, and had I packed yet? My responses were, “I don’t know, sure, and absolutely not”. I then proceeded to tell her about my current situation—hesitantly.
I am not normally one to share such personal information about my life, but I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice. She was basically a stranger to me at that point, so I felt rather vulnerable when I sent the text but I decided I would be satisfied with receiving a half-ass, “sorry to hear that” response back. About one minute later I was pleasantly surprised to receive a sweet and supportive message asking if she could get anything for me at the store or if she could help in any way, but that we would have fun on the trip no matter what. Wow, what a kind stranger.
Fast forward to the 16 hours between leaving for the airport in Baltimore and arriving at the hotel in London. During the Uber ride to and our time sitting in the airport, our six-hour plane ride to London, and the bus ride to the hotel, Bianca allowed me to open up. One of the first things that she told me was that she had been through a tough break up, that it would only get better with time, and that she understood what I was feeling. Her openness and eagerness to help me made me feel comfortable telling her things that I didn’t think I would tell anyone. She asked questions but didn’t pry, she gave me her undivided attention when I talked, and she validated everything that I told her. For those 16 hours, she helped me process my thoughts and emotions. As helpful and insightful as those 16 hours were, nothing can compare to how she truly changed my life over the following eight days.
Our first day in London was physically taxing, mentally exhausting, and just downright brutal. We landed at 8:30 A.M. and weren’t allowed to fall sleep all day to prevent extreme jetlag. I had personally gotten two hours of sleep on the plane, two hours of sleep the night before that, and two the night before that. Saying that I was tired was an understatement. And I was told I had to stay awake for at least twelve more hours? Yeah, we’ll see about that! How could I possibly survive my first day in a foreign country, working on such little sleep, with my mind still processing my breakup? I was bound to trip off the Westminster Bridge on our way to the London Eye because my mind was back home. Or I was definitely going to fall asleep on our boat ride and fall into the Thames River. Believe it or not, neither of those things happened and that day turned out to be one of the best days of my life. Crazy right? How could that possibly be true? To be honest, it was because I wasn’t alone, I had Bianca!
She has this energy about her. I have struggled to succinctly identify what it is, but it’s infectious and has made all the difference to me. From what I’ve noticed, the biggest contributing factor to her energy is that she consistently makes a point to be fully present at all times, both mentally and physically. I don’t know about you, but with present-day technology and social media, I’ve found that it has become progressively harder to remain completely present in any given moment. With phones that give us constant access to pretty much anything and anyone, it’s hard to remember to look up and soak in the world around you.
Bianca’s relentless pursuit of staying in the moment encouraged me to do the same. Whether we were fully engaged in a hands-on activity like learning typography techniques at a studio, or simply waiting for our food at a restaurant, it was tempting to pull our phones out and tell the world about what we were doing. I found myself falling into this habit multiple times at the beginning of the trip, but Bianca kept making a comment over and over again that shifted my perspective. She kept saying “Lauren, we’re in fucking London”. She never said it in an accusatory way, it was always just an off-hand comment as if reality kept hitting her. We would just be walking down Whitechapel Road, on our way to our next destination, and she would just blurt it out: “Lauren, we’re in fucking London”. The first ten times that she said it, I would respond with a sarcastic and unamused, “Yes Bianca, calm down,” but the more she said it, the more I was reminded to just be there, in the moment, 3,500+ miles away from home, out of my comfort zone, off my phone.
Thanks to Bianca, this seemingly insignificant shift in my perspective made a monumental impact on my experience in London. Remaining present didn’t just mean that we were off of our phones. It meant we didn’t sweat the small stuff, but rather appreciated everything that happened, good or bad. I’m not going to sit here and lie to you, telling you that the trip was nothing but sunshine and rainbows. In fact, weather-wise it was the complete opposite—cloudy, chilly and windy almost the entire time. There were times when we walked miles around the city in shoes that gave us blisters, times we got lost, times we were tired, and times when things didn’t go according to plan. As I’m sure you can imagine, that first day really tested our patience and ability to remain present. As hard as it was sometimes, no matter what external circumstances fought to bring us down, we never let it. Our awareness of the present made every moment we spent in London too precious to let anything take away our joy.
Bianca and I quite literally spent every minute of those eight days together. We walked, ate, slept and drank together—legitimately everything. Those who know me, know that I am not the kind of person that can deal with spending that much time with anyone. I like my time to myself, but this was different and I don’t think it was just because we were situationally forced to be together all the time. By the second day, we both realized that we were basically the exact same person. Not only did we have very similar and specific tastes in music, food and coffee, which was still true and shocking, but we shared very similar values, beliefs and views on life. Neither one of us are quick to share personal details about our lives with anyone, but my struggle with my breakup quickly opened the door for deep conversation and we both embraced it. In our 21 very separate years of life before meeting one another, we had very similar experiences that we quickly bonded over and helped each other to process. Not only did we share a room, but we shared stories, experiences, advice, opinions, laughs, tears, confused looks, and lots of food. I felt as if I had known this girl for my entire life.
I signed up for this trip fully expecting to spend my time in London on my own or with a couple classmates. Instead, I consider myself incredibly lucky to have gotten to spend every single minute of my time laughing, crying, yelling, walking, running, fighting, exploring, singing, and dancing with one of my best friends. Our professor and fellow classmates on the trip were in disbelief each time that we told them that we were complete strangers before this class. Almost every single one of them expressed to me that they thought we had known each other our whole lives and I always responded with, “well it feels like I have”.
As Bianca and I have talked about many times, we believe the best moments in life are unexpected. My trip to London proved that point to me over and over again. I didn’t expect to make a best friend, but I did. I didn’t expect for this one week to change my perspective on life, but it did. I didn’t expect to be completely overjoyed by the fact that my relationship ended, but I was. The end of my romantic relationship very directly led to the beginning of an incredible friendship. I cannot stress enough that when one door closes, I promise another one will open. It will be hard, but the possibilities on the other side of that door are endless and better than anything you could imagine.
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