Yesterday I woke up 6,000 miles from home in a bedroom full of Spanish girls yelling at each other in Catalan about who forgot to bring the birth control. (TIL in Barcelona, girls share contraceptives)
Now after 16 hours of planes, trains and automobiles (and a somewhat unprofessional customs agent asking me how many Danish girls I fucked) I'm back home.
Finally diving into some emails, it looks like we're getting a Palm Springs house together for Memorial Day. I've got a wedding coming up, a Bachelor party in San Diego and apparently there is now a wesbite that tracks individual stats for my Softball league.
My trip to the desert, my trip abroad, it already seems like a lifetime ago. All the while I am now left to pick up the pieces and get my shit together. It's like the Sunday scaries, but worse. I honestly haven't had this much anxiety since I graduated college. Seven years later, I still have that feeling of 'now what?'
I could put together a scrapbook of my trip? But I only took like 5 pictures. I forgot a charger so my phone was barely on, even then I didn't turn on data. Apologies for the weakness of my snap stories!
I guess I'll get a job, maybe? Or maybe I'll just sit around and day dream about moving to Europe for a few years while I'm still young. Everything seems so much simpler over there. But before I slip into the minutiae of my day to day life in Venice, I'll leave you with one more tale from my travels abroad, think of it as a palate cleanser.
***
When I think about the 'almosts' in my life, it's shocking that I ended up where I am now.
After I graduated high school, my mom offered me a chance to spend the summer in Europe with her and my brother. I declined, thinking it would be more fun to hang out at shitty Indiana lake houses with my high school friends. I suppose I had a fine summer, but I need you to know that I turned down an all expenses paid 3 week vacation to Europe at the age of 18.
Around that same time, I almost didn't go to IU. I had such a shitty GPA that it was seriously i doubt that I could get into Indiana. I knew a backdoor into Purdue which was to apply to the Agriculture School. I was accepted almost immediately. Indiana took forever. I'm pretty sure my Cathedral High School college advisor may have casually dropped in my file that I was the Great Grandson of a former university dean and trustee, after this I received my acceptance a few days later.
I almost didn't go abroad. My seven roommates and I waited until the very last day to send in our applications to the Florence program. We were rejected as they had filled up already. In a panic, I scanned all of the available programs that were still open. One. In Maastricht, Netherlands. You ever hear someone talk about their wild semester in Maastricht? At the 11th hour someone was able to talk the small Liberal Arts school Marist into letting seven IU bros piggyback on their study abroad program in Florence.
And then of course, I almost didn't move to LA. The same day I got an offer to move my life out here, I got a phone call from someone a Groupon, saying that they would love to have me.
It would have been so easy, to just stay put in my million dollar brownstone, with two of my best friends and continue drinking myself into an early grave. But for some reason, I didn't, I took a risk and moved to LA, and I can't imagine my life here if I didn't.
So when I think of three of the largest events in my life; going to Indiana, studying abroad, moving to LA it's crazy that all three of them came SO CLOSE not to happening. The fact that all three did is actually a miracle.
Going to Indiana, I decided what type of person I wanted to be and developed friendships I will appreciate the rest of my life. Studying abroad made me appreciate the world for how vast it is and how small I am, I was bitten by the travel bug, something that will never leave me. Moving to Los Angeles, I learned what it is that I'm really passionate about, what I think I want to do for the rest of my life.
Almost. Didn't. Happen.
So I would urge anyone that has an 'almost' in their life, take the plunge.
Of course, my life would probably be much more streamlined and predictable if I played it safe once in a while. It would take away from all the massive peaks and valleys I experience on an annual basis, but then again, what would be the fun in that?
Always life life to the fullest and do epic shit. Never have regrets because you came down on the wrong side of 'almost.'
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