59 months...

Tomorrow I leave London.  59 months to the day that I arrived.  28 May 2011 on a Virgin flight from Jozi.  Tomorrow I leave on EK12 from Gatwick at 10am.  59 WHOLE months.  That's like...a long time!

I am ready to go.  That sounds nuts I know.  But I am.  I have known for over 2 years that I needed to leave in May 2016.  It has been a slippery slope to May 2016.  A long journey where you know the ending.  And tonight is my very last night in London.  I spent the day indulging myself - it felt great.  I did what I wanted to do at my very own 'womble' pace.  Generally I have spent the last 5 years staring at the backs of the people I am with...I walk so bloody slowly (although it feels like lightning speed to me!!).  It is a standing joke with Matt and I - I literally have photos of his back on trips we have taken!!!

I watched this amazing video from Liz Gilbert the other day about the closing down of her store in the USA.  The store was called Two Buttons.  And ironically her reasons for closing the store so perfectly summed up my London experience.  I am an Urban gypsy.  Always have been.  Always will be.  I seek the unexpected.  I look for the unknown. I relish the unfamiliar.  It keeps me alive.  It allows me to find the 'human' in those I meet.  And Liz's story basically said - once something gets to be perfect, you just know it is time for it to end.  And that is what London has been.  Perfect.  Perfectly blissful, perfectly challenging, perfectly overwhelming, perfectly humanising, perfectly inspiring.  Just so many levels of perfect.  But it is now perfectly complete.  And I am perfectly happy about that.  Because I know there are so many things to learn about the world that my journey is only half written.

Today I saw Sunset Boulevard at the theatre as my parting gift to myself.  It was spectacular.  But what made it so memorable was the lovely old man who sat next to me.  He asked me all sorts of questions about myself and then asked if I lived in London or was I just visiting from the USA.  I chuckled and said as a matter of fact, I am from neither and as of tomorrow, I will no longer be a resident of London.  We spoke about moving to Dubai and he told me of the travels he had done across the Middle East for work (he wouldn't tell me what he did - 'a story that cannot be told in a jiffy' were his exact words...I reckon he was in the FBI...sounds glamorous!!).  Anyway - he then looked at me and said with his glistening eyes and a genuine sincere voice 'how splendid, you have the rest of your life ahead of you'.  And I was so touched.  In that moment, a complete stranger touched my heart in a way that he could never have imagined.  Thank you kind man!

And thank you to all of you - my readers, my friends.  Thank you to those who have visited, written cards, rang me, made efforts to come and say goodbye.  Those who have given me constant words of encouragement as I have counted down my last 75 days in London...day 1 is tomorrow people - no more countdown!  Thank you to those of you who have written me private notes on Facebook.  Today I received one and I was BLOWN away by how special it was...it was from someone I know through friends.  They live in Jozi and I have not seen this person in (I estimate!) about 8 - 10 years.  But they have become an integral part of my Facebook family - and today they wrote this:

"I haven't found the right words yet to express how I feel a part of your life through pictures and words.  You have taken so many of us on your journey and I so look forward to the next chapter in your life.  Good Luck Gina G and I promise if I ever get to the sand box I will surely look you up.  Lots of love and hugs always xxx"

So think of me tomorrow as I drag my butt onto two trains with 45 kgs of luggage.  Think of me and hold me in your thoughts like I hold you all in mine.  You are ALL my village.  You are ALL my tribe.  And I have insufficient words to express how much your support is the foundation for my bravery on these next steps in my life.

Over and out from rainy Londres peeps xxxx