Before I go to bed...

So its a little strange in Lyon right now, for a couple of reasons.

The first reason being that time is really winding down here. People have booked plane flights home. I have begun to do things for the last time. I've started having that conversation with people about how the hell we're going to get all of our crap home. The Fall term schedule is up on the U of O website. I just received a bunch of information about how to close down my bank account. Its all really strange because at the same time that all of this is happening, I feel like I'm just getting to know these people I have come to spend entire days on end with at a much deeper level. And it's sad that I'll have to leave nearly all of them, most to different countries than my own. This really has been one incredible life changing adventure and I can only hope to continue to live my life the way I have for the last 8 months.

Okay, maybe not EXACTLY the way I have lived it in the past 8 months, but I will definitely live more pro-actively and less passively. I have changed. Change is painful. It was painful to come here. It was painful being away from my friends and home. It was painful getting my heart broken. It was painful learning to deal with French culture. It was painful realizing that life goes on with people that you love even when you aren't there. It was painful realizing that my life is not a movie, nor was it ever, nor will it ever be. There are people like me all over the world. Thousands of 20-some-year-olds who are on one hell of an adventure and feel like they are the most important people in the world. Thats the point of being in your 20's! And although change is painful, it's also very humbling. To be humbled is to be calmed. I am calm and humbled and I feel no more pressure to be something that I am not. I cannot fit into your box, Someone Else. I will make my own box and even then, it's always going to continue to change. I'll paint things on the outside of it, change its color and size. I'll alter it's shape and it's purpose. I'll take things out of it and eventually throw them away but never without that one last peaceful moment where you space out thinking about the way things used to be. Then I'll toss those things into a pile and the eliminated will make space for new things. New things which, with time, will be tossed out or kept dear. It takes brand new situations, unwanted change and painful realizations to see who you are becoming.

And we're always becoming.