Last year, today

Last year, today, I thought I was seconds from my inevitable death... on the back of a motorbike, clinging to Trevor, feeling spikes of broken glass and decayed cement splatter up on my calves.  Barcelona's sun was hot on my back and the rolling green hillsides melted into the sea beneath our tires.  We were chasing our four partners in crime (literally)- from all over the world, riding that high, shreiking into the skies, clinging tight to the moments we rounded those corners, flooding our eyes with mosaic rooftops and the movement of beautiful people- and I thought, today, that if I died, it would be okay, because I felt really, really alive.  High.  High.  High.

The contrast from that high and this now seems devastating, but I'm thinking of those moments, and they remind me of what I'm capable of feeling and doing.  Sometimes, I look back, and I feel let down by where I am in my life right now- but I'm reminded that these periods in life are necessary- to regroup, to grow, to look ahead, again.

Yesterday, I had a craving for Mel's Diner, for the first time since I worked there when I was 17, and sitting in those booths I once worked the graveyard shift serving, I was reminded of growth.  In just 5 years, I have become someone entirely new... I think about how timid I was, how little I knew about myself, how I had no idea what I was going to accomplish and take on in the next half-decade of my life.  And here I sit now, feeling reminiscent, but also excited, because I have grown so much.  And I like who I am becoming.  And I feel my growth from that trip through Europe every day, and all it does is make me hunger for my next adventure.

To purchase tomorrow:
1) Piano/Keyboard
2) New journal
3) Travel book on South America