Don't Panic

Dear Me-Four-Years-Ago, 

You are about to go back to London for your second visit. It will be covered in snow. The tube will be in total disarray and it will take you four hours to travel from Heathrow to Islington. All the tourist attractions will close early. You will not make it inside St. Paul’s Cathedral despite your best efforts. Don’t worry about the admission to Westminster, it’s totally worth it. Don’t worry that you don’t visit the West End. You will discover that traveling solo is Where. It. Is. At. You will discover that walking through London is magical. You will feel like you belong in Europe no matter what your passport says. When Susan says goodbye to you at Paddington after a week of wandering, sight-seeing, and Londoning, you will cry. You will feel as if you are leaving too early. You make a promise to yourself that you will return, and that you will one day live overseas. 

Dear Me-Four-Years-Ago, you come back. You have a Spanish passport. And yes, you live overseas. You make it inside St Paul’s Cathedral. You climb to the roof and with the rooftops of London as your background, you kiss a wonderful boy who turns out to be even more wonderful than you already think he is. You go to drama school. You get an agent. You are an actor living in London. Truly. 

In fact, one night, nearly four years from now, you will walk from your place of work, a theatre in the West End, to Embankment. You won’t even need a map. And you will easily navigate your way to Angel. And after a lovely dinner, you will travel home on the tube. And the air will smell crisp, and the ground will be gritted in preparation for the promise of snow.  And you will remember this time four years ago, and how you couldn’t even conceive how it could all be possible, and you laugh. 

The end.