A year ago today, I slipped off my shoes at security, placed my laptop in a tray, and walked through the metal detector. I waved goodbye to my dad and my sister, tried to keep it together until I could get my things back in order, and rounded the corner to the gate, trying not to cry.
One of my favorite phrases is ‘wild and free,’ because of the feeling it evokes for me: light, airy, someone who does things without giving a care in the world. I think I like the idea of being the girl who’s got a plane ticket in her back pocket and just picks up and goes on a whim. I’m 25. It feels like I shouldn’t need to have things settled by now. I like the idea of being transient and not pinned down, a whole wide world full of options laid out in front of me.
Things I don’t want to forget: being told I needed to stay in the car because I got there early (which never happens), the fact that the man who took our big group photo turned out to be the author of Call Me By Your Name, which Bri and I had gone to see the night before, it being Oscar Sunday which hasn’t ever happened before and will likely never happen again, eating tacos for dinner, being too full to eat my free birthday milkshake after breakfast + mimosas + cake, the fact that there was cake at all, sitting on the beach and listening to the ocean and going to two bookstores.
Overall, 2017 was a really great year for me. I turned 24, moved across the country, and started a whole new life. It was the defining kind of year that I’m sure I’ll remember for years to come. Here’s a quick-fire, bullet point look back at the year for me.
It’s been a while since I wrote a blog post. So long, in fact, that I couldn’t remember my password, and my college email was deleted, so I couldn’t retrieve it. But I missed writing, so here we are again, with a new website and the same me.
