Save tonight.

I'm leaving literally the same way I came.

Robbie and I went to London yesterday, wandered around the Victoria and Albert Museum, found ourselves saying goodbye to Big Ben and ended up in Portobello Market. Goodbye London. Hello Atlanta.

I can't believe it's been 4 months since I first arrived in London to begin this grand adventure. And I can't stress enough what an adventure it has been. I'm sure whoever has been reading this feels like they have been reading the same entry over and over again, particularly the past few weeks--it seems like all I talk about is how amazing this place has been. But, in all honestly, this has been the best time of my life. And that's why it's so hard for me to leave tomorrow, so hard for me to say goodbye to it all. In so many ways, it's still like a dream, and I guess I just have to wake up tomorrow. But, also, it really has become my life and my reality, and it's hard to just pick up and leave.

Today Kels and I made our last trip down to City Centre, not sure why we were even going, especially since we had a list of things to do and were both depressed after saying goodbye to Jack. But we went anyways, and as we got off the 31, she told me that she never thought this day full of laughing and reminiscing and crying would come. And I told her that it isn't that I didn't think I wouldn't have a reason to be sad today. It's that I honestly thought today would NEVER come. I've gotten to where I really cannot envision myself anywhere but here. And I know how upset that makes other people. In truth, it makes me really upset as well. I feel like maybe I've been doing something wrong, if it was so easy for me to leave home, leave KU, leave everything, to come here, and, yet, when I have to go back, I absolutely cannot leave. Bob said that we are feeling this way because there's a chance that we may never see these people again, and that's definitely true. But I also feel like I will never see this life again, this beautiful, amazing, wonderful life I've lived and loved so dearly. I feel like when I leave here tomorrow, I'm leaving it all behind. And I'm so scared. I am absolutely terrified.

I know when I get home I'll be happy to be with everyone, and my summer in Lawrence will be absolutely beautiful. In fact, it may even be the best summer of my life. But I will NEVER live this life again. I will never be here, fully here, with all of these people, singing all of these songs, dancing, running around, waking others up at all hours of the night, crying because I have to say goodbye. I will never be here again.

So if you see me in the next few days and ask me if I'm happy to be home, please don't be offended if I tell you no. The truth is, I am just not ready to face my fears and accept that I can be the new me anywhere else. Someday I will be able to do it. But not yet. Not yet.


Tonight, I am going to dance my ass off, sing with the loves of my life, remember my first night here, fall in love all over again, and lock every memory in my heart to keep it forever.

I plan on saving tonight forever.

We've come full circle.

Kelsey and I spent our last night at swimming squad the same way we began: swinging on the swings in the little playground next to the pool in Oadby. And, instead of talking about life this time, we talked about death.

Now, I am not trying to sound morbid, because that's not what our conversation was about at all. I just think it simply should be noted that we truly have come full circle, and maybe it really is time for us to go home.

I'm beginning to accept the inevitability of May 17th more and more with each passing day. In 3 days, I'll be on a plane back to Atlanta, probably tear-stained and still drunk, but heading home nonetheless.

And as much as I don't want to leave, as much as I'd rather stay on the swings with Bob, going back and forth, I know that I really do need to move on. This place has been so amazing to me, these people have been my best friends for 5 months, and it is so hard to say goodbye. But, as I told Robbie, who is going through a bit of a leaving-crisis as well, we can't think about tomorrow. We can only live today.

I'll deal with home when I get there. Right now, I just need to be here while I'm here.

What to do, what to do...

It's amazing how productive or unproductive you can be when you have a lot of time on your hands.



My life has been reduced to drinking my body weight in Strongbow, learning to chug/shotgun better, actually working on my HEL project (go me!), reading (also, go me!), planning out my summer, and tagging all of my photos on Facebook that I have yet to tag so I can up my photo count.



Hmmm, it's hard to say if this is a worthwhile life or no. I think it probably is a good thing that I'm going home in a week. Probably a very good thing.



Damn, I hope I can find Strongbow in the States.

No one can really understand

Here is a conversation between Katherine and me tonight:

kath889 (2:21:08 AM): hola
ImLOVINit21 (2:21:55 AM): hiya love
ImLOVINit21 (2:22:10 AM): I am about to go to sleepy town, but I can talk for a bit
kath889 (2:24:17 AM): oki doki... so im home now
ImLOVINit21 (2:24:42 AM): ahhhh, that's insane
ImLOVINit21 (2:24:53 AM): I can't even IMAGINE being home right now
ImLOVINit21 (2:24:57 AM): It's all so sureall to me
kath889 (2:25:21 AM): its kinda weird but definitely nice
ImLOVINit21 (2:25:51 AM): yeah, and you leave for Texasssssssss soon
kath889 (2:25:59 AM): yep three weeks
ImLOVINit21 (2:25:59 AM): about as soon as I leave for Kansasssssss
kath889 (2:26:21 AM): are you excited to come home
ImLOVINit21 (2:26:35 AM): Hmmm, not really
ImLOVINit21 (2:26:51 AM): I really don't want to leave
ImLOVINit21 (2:27:09 AM): Like, I am excited to see everybody, but I really don't want to leave in order to see them
kath889 (2:27:27 AM): yeah we should all just come visit you!
ImLOVINit21 (2:27:55 AM): Yeah, it's just weird
ImLOVINit21 (2:28:14 AM): Like, my friends and I have been talking, and it's just really hard to explain
ImLOVINit21 (2:28:31 AM): I just really don't want to come home because this is my life
ImLOVINit21 (2:28:44 AM): and it scares the shit out of me to think that I am leaving my life
kath889 (2:29:41 AM): but i mean you have to think this was your life before
ImLOVINit21 (2:29:56 AM): See, that's the problem
ImLOVINit21 (2:30:10 AM): I realized that I came out here thinking I would never make this my life
ImLOVINit21 (2:30:56 AM): That I was leaving my life behind for a little bit to go experience something new, but, in the end, I'd be able to come home and I'd be able to live things the same way I had been living them
ImLOVINit21 (2:31:00 AM): but I can't
ImLOVINit21 (2:31:20 AM): I have made this life here, and as much as I know I have to leave it, I just can't
ImLOVINit21 (2:31:26 AM): and it's nothing personal at all
ImLOVINit21 (2:31:48 AM): Like, I can't wait to see everyone and hang out and tell you all my stories
ImLOVINit21 (2:32:23 AM): but this is who I am now. I have changed SO much, and I honestly cannot go back to who I was before. It just isn't possible
ImLOVINit21 (2:32:47 AM): And it sucks because I feel like people at home will be mad at me because they think I came over here and became so pretentious
ImLOVINit21 (2:32:55 AM): But I really just changed, that's all
ImLOVINit21 (2:32:59 AM): I just changed for the better
kath889 (2:33:18 AM): i mean a big trip like that is definitely going to make you change, and everyone here should know that
ImLOVINit21 (2:34:13 AM): Yeah, I hope so
ImLOVINit21 (2:34:28 AM): Like, it won't be as different with you all, because I NEVER see you guys
ImLOVINit21 (2:34:37 AM): Like, coming over here is about the same as going to KU
kath889 (2:34:41 AM): and a lot of your friends will be back at kansas right? so that should make it a little easier
ImLOVINit21 (2:34:47 AM): but I am really worried about going back to Kansas in the fall
kath889 (2:34:51 AM): i mean like friends you have made
ImLOVINit21 (2:34:56 AM): yeah, they will
ImLOVINit21 (2:35:11 AM): I don't know, it's all just so strange and hard to get a grasp on
kath889 (2:35:50 AM): i bet
ImLOVINit21 (2:36:03 AM): yeah


Kath has always been there for me, but, even now, I feel like I am on my own. Well, not completely on my own. I have Robbie and Kelsey to get me through this. And I am sure that probably upsets a lot of people. But honestly, everyone has to understand that this is not personal AT ALL. This is about me, and only me, as selfish as this sounds. It is me now, only me...

I came into this situation expecting a good time, expecting to meet some semi-interesting people and to learn some semi-intersting things. I never in my wildest dreams expected that I would meet my soul mates and then be torn away from them.

I am trying so hard to reconcile this entire experience: to tell myself that I've had a good run and that's all it really can be. But I simply cannot do that. I can't tell myself that I'll never help Bob pick out what to wear for the night out, that I'll never go to brunch with Robbie, and that my relationships with Bill, Sam and the lot of them have all been for show. This has literally been the life I have been living for the past 5 months. It hasn't been some stand-in for the life I lived at home.

THIS IS MY LIFE. I can't stress that enough. And now you're telling me to abandon it?! To leave behind the only thing I've known?

I can't do it. I cannot leave.

I'm so afraid of the next two weeks. I am absolutely terrified.

Notes on traveling: Paris, Normandy and Versaille

A drastic need to finish writing papers that count for 100% of my final grade here in Leicester kept me from writing about my last two weeks traveling. So here is the shortened version, now that I am thankfully done procrastinating and banging out 6000 mediocre words on English Literature.




4.9.2008 Another Arrival


Never in a million years did I ever think I'd actually make it to Paris. And here I am, visiting this beautiful city 2 times in less than 2 months. My life is blessed. Truly blessed.

4.13.2008 I've seen the beaches of Omaha through my grandfather's eyes.

I walked with my grandfather once more today, and saw the sands of Normandy through his eyes.

In so many ways, I wish I could explain what it was to go to Normandy and stand where so many others have been and so many men have lost their lives. I walked off the train in Cain knowing that today would be the most important day of my life, that going to Normandy would be the most important thing I could ever do. And it was.



It's hard for me to tell others about my grandfather without crying, and this is not because we were particularly close. In truth, I hardly knew the man who was John Packett, Sr. I knew him as much as anyone could know someone from that generation known as the greatest generation. He was quiet, proud, humble, and it was only after he almost lost his life the first time over a decade ago that I really began to see more of the loving, warm, silly side of Grandpa. But there are so many things that I know my grandfather was--an adventurer, a hero, stubborn, a hard-worker--that I only know because of what he didn't tell me. And it is this grandfather--the grandfather who was all of these things--who I walked with in Normandy, who I wept for, and who embodies an ideal to me that I wish I could find around me more often.



I was in Normandy, and I felt like I was in the America I've been looking for forever. And I was proud, and I was sad, and I felt like I could make a difference for once, I felt like things could really change. I was on American soil, but I was in a different country. And I've never felt so happy to be an American citizen in my life.

Go to Normandy. Please, go to Normandy. It will be the most important thing you could ever do.









4.15.2008 Let them eat cake.


I'll be honest when I say the only reason I wanted to go to Versailles was to see the gardens. I've had this image of Marie Antoinette running through miles and miles of beautiful gardens, wearing some beautiful, colorful concoction and not caring a whim that her country is in turmoil.

Ok, that's a little harsh, but I really did have a vision of Versailles in my mind. SO you will imagine my surprise when I finally arrived at the Palace at Versailles and was a bit disappointed. Don't get me wrong, it was fabulous in every way--decadent, massive, beautiful, royal. But I didn't get the same impression I have built up in my mind when I arrived there. Maybe it's because I was with Joe and Karen, and Robbie had already told me all about the fabulous time they had at Versailles a couple days before--rowing on the lake, wandering through the palace, frolicking, doing the family bit. I don't know; maybe I was just jealous of the amazing time they had and wishing I could have my own, but the wonders I went looking for just didn't appear.

I think I have just become completely travel-jaded (word?), is what the problem really is. All of this traveling is really getting to me, and I don't know how much more of it I can take. I am supposed to go to Valencia and Dublin when I get back to Leicester, but I seriously might just say fuck it. I am excited to be grounded again. As amazing as the past 5 weeks have been, I am exhausted. And I am ready to sleep in Digby Yellow Block, room 26, once again.




Hmmm, I think I lasted a good while though. 5 weeks in and out of trains, lugging my massive suitcase up and down stairs, managing to not get into any fights with my travel companions, and seeing as much of 7 countries as I possibly could. Damn, I'm good.