Make new friends, but keep the old

I was walking through Covent Garden with Ayla today, shooting the bull like we always do, when I was seized by a sudden realization that I'm actually leaving London in two days.  This means that I won't get to ring up my friends and make dates for French pastry, or get on the tube to go eat pancakes with them, or even just send silly texts to talk about how crap the TFL is.  And it made me a little sad.  

I've been away from Boston for two and a half months.  I'm sitting here in my Red Sox t-shirt (birthday gift from husby last year) and jammy pants and I absolutely can't wait to be home in my house with my sweet puppy and my washing machine and my DRYER (oh how I've missed my dryer) and my DISHWASHER (let's not even go there - it's a Russian novel) and all of the clothes that I left behind.  It will be like an episode of What Not To Wear, where they show footage of some poor soul wearing the same clothes over and over again on video, and then they give her this great wardrobe.  Yep, that's me, the girl wearing the same black sweater for two and a half months, because I had to do this operation in one large suitcase.  Good thing I like that black sweater.  Yeesh.  I just want to wear a different coat.  My black trench coat needs to go back into the closet, and stay there for a while.  But I digress.  

Ayla and I ended up sitting at Pret, waiting for another girlfriend of mine and her new boyfriend to arrive.  We were joking about how we just walk around and shoot the shit (sex and boys, sex and boys, she says) and then about the occasional interruptions for architecture and art history lessons (sex and boys, sex and boys, ooh look it's a combination of neo-Gothic and Victorian architecture! sex and boys) and then my googling at dogs on the street (sex and boys, Gothic Revival, look a labrador! sex and boys).  It occurs to me how much I will miss this girl.  We met ten years ago, at very silly ages, and totally hit it off.  Ten years later, we're no longer quite so silly, but our love for pencil cases (mission accomplished!) and good cups of tea and the incredible ease of company has remained.  Hubby says it's because neither of us suffer from the "smartest girl in the room" disorder when we're together.  

After supper, I took a little time to walk around, popping in and out of shops, gently deflecting comments from people about the "smudge" on my forehead (um, hello, it's Ash Wednesday?) and realizing how comfortable I've started to feel in London.  I know my way around so much better than I ever did, and the warm fuzzies from the ENO people make me hope and pray that I will be hired back.  I'm not ready to cross London off the list.  In how many other cities could you go to a Templar church, and buy a Japanese pencil case, and then go to the opera, and see the crown jewels, and listen to a real Evensong service, all in one day?

So.  I've lapsed a little in my habits of betterment.  Let's get back on the horse.  For Lent, I'm giving up trying to relive the old lives of myself, chocolate, and sleeping past 9am.  And I'm bringing back the gratitude, because there's so much I have to be thankful for.  Let's do it.

1.  Muji - the silly store full of fun organizational things that make my heart hum

2.  good friends, who still remember how silly I was 10, 5, 2 years ago, and like me anyway

3.  an Ash Wednesday service in which I was neither leader nor singer

4.  the kindness of strangers

5.  progress, grace, and humility, in no particular order