I just read back through a few of my previous blog posts, mostly because I have given the URL of this blog to the first person who isn't related to me. I'm terrified, because I've never had a blog before, and I don't know what people will think of it, but hey, write stuff. Scribble a little every day, that's what Anne Lamott taught me, and I am, for once, following that advice.
These posts, I've begun to realize, have also helped me to document some of my life, which I am so good at NOT doing. For being a writer, that's pretty much like a dog saying they don't much care for fetch. There are those of us who struggle with daily journaling, just as there are dogs who struggle with fetch, and some dogs who just don't fancy it at all. That's not entirely the case with me, I do like journaling, but without perspective I always have the trouble of coming back and finding what I've written to be trite and uninteresting. Who cares about the simple everyday goings on of a twenty-something with no social life?
Sure, there are those twenty somethings who have entirely interesting social lives, who go out and do things and can tell you all about sex and the big city, style, intrigue, drama, gardening, painting, and whatever manner of hobbies that they happen to possess. Even my revered Anne Lamott writes about writing. She gets away with it, because she's a published writer and when she writes about writing its interesting and informative. When I write about writing it sounds like a squirrel on crack with a pencil telling you to write a term paper on the merits of squirrel barking. Or that weird double tap thing they do when they see you looking at them.
Please consider the last portion of that paragraph as an example of why I do not write about writing.
The thing is, I never know what to write about. And here suddenly is a reason for me to write, every day, without end: I am following my dream.
In reading through those past few blogs, I've remembered little moments I would otherwise have forgotten, remembered feelings I would have never thought about again. Almost sixty days ago I was terrified that I had written such a low number in my countdown, and now just look, sixteen days to go. I have a visa, I have plans, I have money, I got through a whole month of working a boring day job, I am ready to plunge forward into the great beyond that is a Study Abroad Year.
So here I am, writing to you about the weirdness that I am and the wilds that are to come. Hopefully I'll be able to tell you about all the good friends I am making, the slightly pompous locals who turn their noses up at foreigners, the kind locals who are willing to explain the me what a TV license is and how I can get one, the weird food and good beer, the sheep, the downs, the highlands, the moors, about everything English, and then everything German, French, Italian, Spanish, Czech, Swiss, and Dutch. Hopefully I'll be able to take you along on this crazy, slightly by-the-seat-of-our-pants ride across the country to New York, from New York across the Atlantic Ocean, through London across the English Countryside, to a little city called Swansea.
The next year for me is fraught with exciting potential, terrifying possibilities, and maybe, occasionally, a good blog post.
