Oxford Blues

Photo by Olivia Gündüz-Willemin.

I experienced my first health-related crisis while being born. The doctor gave my mom a full dose of stadol and my newborn heart stopped in the womb. My first few moments of life in this world were spent trying to restart my heart. At fourteen, an allergist found that I didn't have immunity to common bacteria that I should have developed immunity to as a toddler. Because of this lack of immunity, I have had more pneumonia shots for correcting the problem than given to a seventy-five-year-old. During my freshman year of college, I was hospitalized with a colon infection. Even in the emergency room with a fever of 102, I was telling my mom to take me home because the doctors (like they so often did) would say I wasn’t actually sick. Instead, the doctors hospitalized me.  

“In order to accomplish anything, I have to pretend I’m healthy and normal. But this pretending failed me once.
”

— Elizabeth Slabaugh

Despite this life of chronic illness, I led a fairly normal childhood. I loved reading books like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit. I could transport myself to a world of health, adventure, and normalcy. My stubborn nature developed during these young years associated with pain and doctors. 

As an adult, I’m so driven to succeed that sometimes I forget that I'm ill. Until my knees ache when walking upstairs. Or I need to go to bed for two days because of a migraine. I always push through because I have to. In order to accomplish anything, I have to pretend I'm healthy and normal. But this pretending failed me once.

People like to say that when you look back on your life, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do. The places you didn’t go. Choosing safety over risk. When I was younger, I thought that this concept was silly. But maybe it does hold some cliché–stock image of birds flying off in the wind–truth. 

***

The spring before my last year of college, I had been accepted to the study abroad program through Best Semester. By September, I would have been in Oxford, England, taking Victorian Literature and other classes that I don’t even remember now. It didn’t happen that way.  During the summer, I realized I couldn’t afford the semester abroad. More importantly, I also didn’t feel well enough to even try it. My stomach hurt all the time and my body was fatigued. That was before I was diagnosed with IBS and fibromyalgia. When I still thought that I was making my symptoms up or that it was all in my head like the doctors told me. I blamed my body for not letting me go to Oxford. 

The fall semester of my senior year was my most painful semester of college. I cried in every building on campus due to stress and broken friendships, and caring professors gave grace when my migraines prevented me from attending classes. I kept feeling like I wasn't supposed to be there. I wasn't supposed to be experiencing this existential crisis daily. I was supposed to be in Oxford. Instead, I was enrolled in 17 credits while working two part-time jobs on campus as a TA and a tutor, convening the workshops for the intro to journalism class, and participating in my psych club as president. If I could do all of this, why couldn't I go to Oxford? I pushed myself past any of my normal boundaries and still felt guilty.

But why was Oxford so important to me? It was perhaps less the place itself and more of the dream it held. Going somewhere where I would be surrounded by literature and authors long past and where I could perhaps forget my life of illness. None of my other accomplishments mattered because Oxford was in my soul. The little girl of my past urged me to see the place where some of her favorite books were written. 

I fumbled my way through the semester. I wrote Shakespeare papers, I dissected sheep brains in psychology, and I sobbed on my best friend Nichelle's couch when my heart was breaking. We had been friends for three years and she stayed by my side as I lost Oxford. She tried to understand and comfort me. She also refused to let me fully give up on my dream. She insisted that I go on a trip with her next summer. For my last semester, I enrolled in an upper division theology class that was going to Europe for two and half weeks after graduation. The short amount of time wouldn’t interfere as much with my health and the cost was thousands of dollars less than Oxford. A perfect compromise. 

Five days after graduation, I boarded a plane with twenty-five other college students from my school. Even up to the moment of driving to the airport, I thought something would happen and I wouldn’t be able to go. It wasn’t until I was sitting on the plane with Nichelle next to me that I knew it wasn’t like before. This time I was actually going. We landed in London 24 hours later. 

***

When we arrived in London in mid-May, the sun shone every day. The sky and wispy clouds felt closer somehow. I know that the sky is just as far away in the US, but I felt like I could touch it in the United Kingdom. My dream was finally coming true. 

My raincoat stayed rolled up in my suitcase and I breathed deeply of the harsh London air that smelled like cigarette smoke, burnt cooking oil, and gasoline. It was glorious. During my first ride on the London metro, I watched a group of teenagers talking. Real London teenagers, I thought, I’m so excited. It turned out that they were German teenagers speaking French and sometimes slipping into English. This incident was only the first of many that reshaped my small-town brain. As someone with a serious and pretentious anglophile obsession (complete with Doctor Who watching and tea drinking), I was in awe of everything I witnessed. 

Of course, I picked up a cold on the flight to London and I spent the second day in London sleeping and drinking aloe-vera juice and orange juice without bits. I didn’t even mind that much being sick. I slept, then explored the apartment with its tiny windows, weird light switches, and the toilet that flushed differently from American toilets. The apartment was located on Waverly Street in some section of London that I never learned. Over fifteen college girls were stuffed into this small three-bedroom apartment and Nichelle and I shared a futon (best friendship forever). I enjoyed the quiet. I wrote in my journal and drank tea and texted my parents that I will still alive.  

After one day of sickness, I pushed past the cold and Nichelle and I explored London in our free-time away from the group. We went to the Twinings tea store where we bought loose-leaf tea and we took pictures at London Bridge. Of all the sites in London, seeing Big Ben is one of my favorite memories.

I sat on a concrete ledge directly across the street from Big Ben. Inside the large, brick structure behind me was the entrance to the underground tube, but the building didn’t look like it housed public transport–it looked like a museum or courthouse. I remember that I kept feeling lost when trying to figure out what exit we took from the building to reach Big Ben. But there I was, sitting and craning my neck to look at the clock hands, eating a ham sandwich from one of the shops behind me. Everything about what I was doing was normal for my life–stopping in the middle of everything because I was hangry, forcing my friends to sit with me as I supplied my low blood sugar with carbs and protein. Yet the sight before me was the atypical part of this hangry Elizabeth scene: that majestic, impossibly tall clock rising up into the blue sky.

Even as I was sitting there, I was reflecting on how I would remember this years later. How I would look back and feel the concrete on my dangling legs as I swung them back and forth. The rush of people in front of me who didn’t block my view because Big Ben was large and hovering over the street. I could feel my future self meet my present self in that ordinary and extraordinary moment of eating a sandwich and gazing at one of the most iconic sites of London. 

***

Nichelle and I followed the rest of the class around London and the surrounding area. In all of the church visiting and touring John Wesley’s house, I waited for the right moment to ask our professor if Nichelle and I could go off on our own and visit Oxford. Our professor said yes without any hesitation. 

It had been sunny the entire trip. Except for that day. Nichelle and I boarded a red, double-decker bus and watched as the city suddenly disappeared into rolling, green hills. How could a city of almost 9 million people just vanish? I took my umbrella with me. It was bright yellow with a duck head shaped handle. (In fact, I still have it and use it. Every time, the duck umbrella reminds me of Oxford.) 

When we stepped off the bus, we were surrounded by cream-colored structures and cobblestone. I knew where I wanted to go first but we wandered around the city until lunch time. No one truly wants fish and chips at 10:00 a.m. Nichelle and I began our walk away from the bus stop to the center of town while I took dozens of photos. She waited patiently for my nerdy heart to settle but it never did. I screeched when I saw Waterstones bookstore and we went inside to buy books. 

The Eagle and Child, photographed by Elizabeth Slabaugh.

Then I saw it. The first tears I cried in Oxford were not from sadness but from extreme joy. I stood in the middle of the cobblestoned street and sighed at the sight of a little pub called The Eagle and Child. I didn’t expect to cry. I had spent so much time crying back home that I thought for sure all my tears were used up. Nichelle and I found a little booth in the back of the pub and sat for a moment before ordering. I was sitting where J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis might have discussed their stories of hobbits and lions, and griped about each other’s characters and plots. I saw their faces framed on the wall and quotes written in bright-colored chalk on black chalkboards. I stood up to order my fish and chips and as I waited in line, I cried because I was standing where books that made me love reading had been penned. 

“Are you really crying right now?” Nichelle asked. She’s always the blunt one. 

The Eagle and Child, photographed by Elizabeth Slabaugh.

“No. Maybe. I love it here.” 

I ate my fish and chips and drank a ginger beer and listened as other patrons spoke of my dear, dead authors. 

Then I knew it was time to visit the college where I would have attended during my semester at Oxford. We walked to Wycliffe Hall. I wanted to get closure as if Oxford and I had broken up. Maybe I did have this weird relationship with Oxford. Maybe I still do. 

Wycliffe Hall photographed by Elizabeth Slabaugh.

The rain fell steadily as I stared at the red brick structure. I tried the door handle but it was locked. How fitting. Standing on the outside, I said goodbye to all the dreams that Oxford meant to me. My duck umbrella kept the raindrops off my face but not the tears. After a few minutes, Nichelle shivered from cold and we walked away. I watched students on their bikes ignoring the rain and wished I was one of them. I tried to imagine what my life would have been like as a student living in that cream-colored city.  Even with the pain that Oxford brought and my regret in not spending a semester there, Oxford felt like home. The academic infusion was palpable and I felt like I belonged. 

***

Not attending school in Oxford is still my greatest regret. It’s the one thing I think of when people ask if there’s something I would do over. It was almost worse than a break-up. I stood in the rain to get closure and instead keenly felt everything that I had missed. The sky felt my sorrow and wept with me. Years later, I'm still ill and all of my choices are based on what my body will let me do. People still say, “There's time to go to Oxford! You can go now!” But my circumstances are still the same. I can’t live for long-term away from family support (even for a semester) because of my health, and I don't have the money to go. 

Nevertheless, I can still dream. I can see myself riding a bike in that cream-colored city, wearing my bright red raincoat, and ignoring the rain. Maybe someday my stubborn, chronically ill self can make it work.

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Elizabeth Slabaugh is a writer from Idaho who loves tea, autumn, embroidery, and potatoes. When she's not writing, she enjoys spending time with her perfect dog Sophie.