The Finale (sadly.)

I didn't want to end this entire experience with a bad note... so I shall write one more journal entry.

 There have definitely been some really sad things that happened along the journey of the last three months, but the absolutely amazing experiences that I have been fortunate enough to undertake far outweigh the missteps. Yes, I lost a good friendship that I had with my professor, which I deeply regret, and I miss being able to talk to. I saw him in the hallway today and he walked past me like I had never existed... and since it was the first time that I had seen him in four months... it was kind of hard. But as we learn through development and growth, sometimes things happen that you have absolutely no control over and you simply cannot blame yourself. All you can do is move forward and work towards a brighter future.... and with my friends and family by my side... it promises to be incredibly bright.

It's been difficult adjusting to being home. I miss so many things that I didn't even realize I had. It always lights a smile on my face to see an email from Poland or a Skype IM from Spain. I now have friends all over the globe, which is not something that many 21-year-olds can boast. I have been blessed beyond belief, not only with the experience of this summer - learning how to cook broccoli to perfection, or that they really DO check your tram tickets for a time stamp, or that traveling to an extremely foreign culture is equal parts nerve wracking and exciting, and then you get there and have an indescribable high. Home is lonely though. I never knew I could be with someone 23 hours a day for 86 days straight and not get tired of them, but it's possible. Write me down in the Guinness Book of World Records. Now I don't even know how to be alone. Ash will leave the living room and in my head I'll be screaming "Don't leave me!! I need human contact!" Hahah I'm silly. But I make Courtney spend the night and I go over there a lot, too. It seems I've found a new fixture in my life... the L-squared I've grown to know and love. Friends really are the family we choose.

You don't realize how much you impact other peoples' lives.. even in the tiniest ways. I cannot even begin to count the sheer volume of my friends and acquaintances and PARENTS who have come up to me and said "I religiously read your blog" or "It was great seeing all of your adventures unfold through Facebook photographs." I know, now, that I have a incredible network of people rooting for me to succeed. It's invigorating and stimulating and it feels... quite frankly... wonderful. Life can be such a scary thing and everyone needs a solid foundation on which to build. I'm lucky to have found that in Birmingham and Florida... I'm just plain lucky.

Most days I'll be doing something random and insignificant and suddenly flash back to a memory of this summer. I haven't taken the time to read my personal journal or my blog yet, but I still have so many memories that are fresh in my mind and snap me back across the Atlantic. I went to lunch with a friend, Paul Sparkman, and a stray mushroom in my soup made me launch into a random European story about shopping at Andre and a crazy old Polish lady yelling mercilessly at Courtney over spilled redbull in a glass soda jar. A boy at a frat party two weekends ago asked me what the craziest thing I had done this summer was.... and I took about four minutes flipping through snapshots in my mind, trying to figure out what crazy thing really deserved the number one spot. A fallen photograph in my room from last year reminded me of the night Courtney and I desperately jumped on the metro in Paris to go see the lit-up Eiffel tower and ended up only catching a glimpse from the coach on a bridge over the Seine, but not before we purchased the world's most delicious chocolate ice cream from the McDonalds on the Champs Elysees. The metros cut off and all of these people (tourists) were waiting for the next train, which wasn't going to come until 5:45 a.m., but nobody could read the signs in french, except for me, and nobody believed me when I told them there were not any more trains coming... so Courtney and I just forsoke all those dumb people (haha joke) and ran off to try to make a different connection. That didn't work, of course, and we ended up at the Arc d'Triumph; me, desperately trying to tell a cab driver, in french, that I had no idea where our hotel was but that it was near a certain metro stop and we needed to be taken there.... and befriended a nice young American guy in a Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt (and aren't they the best?) who lent us his map so I could affirm my crazy directions to the Jamaican driver with avid pointing at the spot on the grid. We gathered about 100 Euro for the ride, and I was worried it wouldn't be enough... and then it ended up being six dollars. Oh the joys and the tribulations.... and the smiles. How could one photograph evoke so much? Where will I store all these anecdotes to assure they never disappear? How can I guarantee that I never lose a single detail?

This summer has merely reconfirmed my beliefs that I want to go overseas and save the world - practice medicine in north African and do what I can to help who I can. There is nothing that gives me more pleasure in the world than connecting with people... and this summer is a testament to that. I can't wait to start chasing after my dreams... really start.

But then again, there is no time like the present.

Thank you all for being such a wonderful audience this summer. It's been lovely to express myself through the written word and just get my thoughts out there. Even if they aren't always the most well formulated... if I use commas far too often and say "incredible" about fifteen million times an entry... thanks for putting up with me. Sharing everything I've been through somehow makes the last three months even more real.... and I'd like to believe it's something that all of us will never forget.