Beautiful Ruins

It's been over a year since I went to Italy.  Almost a year and a half.  Every single day of my life, that experience gets further and further away.  Every single time I talk about it on here, the (few) people who read this blog must roll their eyes in exasperation because, Teresa, that was over a year ago.  Every day it gets less relevant to your life.  Every time you bring it up just reinforces the fact that it happened, a long time ago, and now that it's over you have nothing important or interesting to talk about anymore.

Of course, it's all true.  It doesn't affect my day to day life anymore.  People don't ask me about it anymore, and if I do bring it up, I only get polite interest because it was over a year ago for goodness sake. 

But still, I am tearing up as I write this, because I still feel as if I left something important over there.

This is something I'm sure every travel-loving person will tell you.  It's not anything new.  I'm not someone with a particularly special story connected to Italy.  I had a nice trip there, and by the end of 5 weeks, I was ready to go home.

I missed Italy immediately after I got home, of course.  But I was so happy to be back.  And in the weeks immediately following my return, everyone wanted to hear about it, so I was able to relive it over and over again for some time.  

But when people stop caring about it and you realize that you haven't, that's when it starts hurting.  

So this is a post simply to say: Italy is still one of the most important things that has happened to me.

And I never want to forget, not one second of it.

Don't celebrate the New Year yet - celebrate the last day of 2013!

I'm a big fan of not waiting for your life to "begin."

I'm in school right now.  I've been in school ("in" being used loosely here, as I was home schooled right through high school) since I was 5 - 15 years now - and I have at least another 5 (ungrad/Grad school) before I'm done.  At times, I fall into the trap of thinking, "When I'm done with school, THEN exciting things will happen!  THEN I will travel and be spontaneous and carefree and happy!  THEN my life will begin!"

But, I really don't believe that.  Oh, I'm sure plenty of exciting things will happen.  But my life won't start then, because it started over 20.5 years ago.  There is nothing to wait for; I'm here, living, right now!

So I made a pact with myself: when you're 25, 26, 27 - however old I will be when I'm done with school - don't be disappointed when you look back on your early twenties. 

2013 didn't disappoint me.  I'm enjoying one final day of this lovely year.

To quote Holiday Inn, "Let's watch the old year die with a fond goodbye, and our hopes as high as a kite."

Happy last day of 2013, and have a blessed New Year!

Grazie

Thanksgiving is the most heartwarming holiday of the year for me.  It's a break from all of the stress of school and homework and applications and studying for finals, and I get to surround myself with my family.

My thankful list for this year:

Lights in my room

Bears game during class

Sweaters that have feet

Blue hair

Leafmageddon in the front yard

Every sunset

Beignets on Mardi Gras

*Going to the casting call for extras for the Divergent movie.  (We didn't make the cut, but my bff's sister has a pretty prominent role!)

*The release of the movie At Any Price.  My mom, sister, and I are all in it, but my mother's the only one visible in the trailer.

*Spots of color in a neutral life

 *Going crazy from school

*Beauty that is unexpectedly found on a train from New York City to Baltimore

*Books books books

*Snow... always for snow

*Using chemistry labs as coloring paper

*Happy reunion with my Br. brother in New York

*Favorite dress of all time (and last minute hotel self-portraits)

*Thanksgiving for days

*Him

*Them

*Her

*These

*Quotes that daily inspire me to be better

*But most of all,

*... having security