I’m leaving for Savannah tomorrow, then off to Senegal in a few months, then South Africa, then back here to DC to live in my awesome house and be with my awesome girlfriend Sarah. Then in one year I’ll be off to South East Asia. I don’t really use this anymore, other than to write about how great my life is going, and I don’t think that merits keeping it around.
And now very soon I’m leaving for Georgia. I won’t be able to take my car there at first because the Virginia DMV is the epitome of slow bureaucracy but I’ll have it later in June, which is okay, it’s only sentimentality really.
Nothing will stop me, and while I will miss Sarah terribly over the next seven months, it’s good that as a person usually so adverse to commitment I have found someone I’m willing to stay with while being on different ends of the earth at different times.
February 1, 1963 — see The Complete Peanuts 1963-1966
West Railay Beach. Krabi, Thailand
Mandalay, Myanmar
I’ve had such a great sophomore year. I was sick for a lot of the fall, and I had a skull fracture, but it’s been absolutely fantastic. I went to Haiti, Rugby won championships, I made a lot of great new friends and kept the ones that really matter to be. I approached things with courage and an open mind, and now I have a titanium plate in my forehead to always remind me that I’m tougher than most people are, lol.
I got stung by a jellyfish in the Caribbean and spent new years in an abandoned building overlooking downtown colonial style Savannah, as fireworks burst over the city, sipping on free champagne from friendly strangers. So many amazing memories this year, and my time with Sarah has been incredible, by far the best relationship I’ve ever had, the only person I’ve ever really loved romantically.
I hate to say goodbye, and knowing I won’t see people for six months, I hate to see off these friends who mean so much to me. But I’ve got to get a going to Senegal, to see West Africa, and before that Boston and Savannah, two of the greatest towns in the U.S.
Life is always going to be changing, full of new things, people, places. And it’s a completely transient thing, for billions of years I knew nothing and for the past nineteen I have opened by eyes briefly, for this time in the sun. A few decades and then back to the universe, back to the great sleep. Every moment, a joy, every moment the greatest gift I could possibly have. There is only one life, you only live once, and as much as I wish things would stay the way they are, for yet another time, life is perfect for me.
Here’s to a great year, to great travels, to great family, and to great friends. Here’s to a great summer, and here’s to a great semester abroad!
I might not be able to squeeze out three minors. French for sure, so now I have to decide between public health, education, environmental science, or statistics. Fuck.
