As I have done so, so many times with this blog, I write something out and really, truly mean to post it, but then it gets lost – the words aren’t right, I didn’t say what I wanted to say, it just never became what I needed it to be. Then I feel like I can’t post anything until I post the last thing, which is usually total shit, so I don’t post anything at all.
But I guess what I’ve been trying to say lately is thank you, a big, swooning, heartfelt thank you to everyone that has held my hand, and even to those that let go of my hand or refused to ever take it in the first place. Thank you to the people I loved, the people I left, the people that left me. Thank you to those I grew apart from for no good reason, to the people I had falling-outs with. I’ve been feeling a sturdy sense lately that I have done things right, especially as my four years at UNC has closed definitively. It’s not because nothing has ever gone wrong. It’s not that I did anything amazing to end up where I am now. I am just here, and I am so, so, so thankful.
I couldn’t have asked for a better senior year – or a more traditional one – nights at He’s Not, Carolina basketball games, gardening, swinging, so much Merritt’s and Sunrise, quad-sitting, LDOC-celebrating. It was good, so so good, and also ridiculously swallowed up in the full spectrum of emotion. In some ways it is a relief to let it go. It was good. It’s over. It’s time for what’s next.
I’m thrilled to venture across this wild country this summer, and I’ll be blogging about it here. My path out takes me through Nashville, Memphis, Tyler, Austin, Santa Fe and the Grand Canyon, to go through Los Angeles and end up in Cazadero, a tiny town north of San Francisco where I’ll (fingers so very crossed) learn how to milk a couple of sweet goats and make cheese.
So although I don’t have the right words, or much in the way of words at all, I hope that I’ll try a little harder to find them this summer. And if I don’t have the words, I’ll try to find it (whatever “it” is) with my camera. So thanks – thanks for following along. Thanks for being the shiny, beautiful part of the world. I hope to keep that part always close.
