Well... since I'm not using this blog for anything else these days, I am going to use it for my travel log. In a mere twelve days from now I will begin my journey overseas for the first time in my almost thirty year long life. First stop- London! Then I will be whisked away to Paris and then Italy. I am not sure what to expect at this point. People have said it will change my life, but will it? Will it change my life anymore than the time I went to Alabama and endured racism from both sides of the color line? Will it change me more than living in a latino neighborhood across the street from the Norteno's leader in my city. What exactly will it change about me and my character?
I have all of these questions about what will transpire and how my heart will come out afterward. Am I really prepared to do most of this alone? Some people have expressed their worry for me, that a girl shouldn't go alone. Ha, I am not a girl anymore. Even if my mind sometimes wishes to be that 8 year old girl being tucked into bed by her mother and made bacon and home fries for breakfast the next day. I am acknowledged everyday in the mirror by this woman that sometimes I don't even recognize. I recognize that she wants to go and go alone.
I remember my first "big" trip to DC when I was 17 and looking at colleges. It was initially supposed to be one that I got for finally losing enough weight to get me under 200lbs. Unfortunately, I was never able to make that weight but Riri and Raleigh took pity on me and decided that college was important enough to give up on their hopes of getting me healthy first. I savored that trip because of The Mall and all of the Smithsonians we were able to go to. I relished Washington Cathedral's nooks and art. I sat in the pews without knowing God and felt him there. I then made it my life's goal to Cathedral hop one day, to feel the burn in my skin as I took communion when I shouldn't have and cry again as I did staring at a painting of La Pieta.
I like to think of this trip as the present to myself that they were trying to give me back then. I turn thirty this May and for the first time in my adult life I am under 200lbs. I am the healthiest, happiest, and frankly the most beautiful I've ever been and am ready to be a part of the world. Yeah... maybe it took me this long to not be frightened anymore; to be confident enough to just leave.
I hope that my questions are answered by the end of this trip. I hope to find this elusive "change" that people talk about. I envision european romance that I'm sure to find in sideways glances and fleeting conversations, but nothing more. I remember all of the authors and their stories, Stein and Woolf and Nin. I want a story. I need a story.
Twelve more days and I'll be off to find one.
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