Goodbye

So I did it. I jumped with both feet onto the blogging bandwagon, and I'm curious to see where it takes me. I should admit from the outset that I am not sure how this will go. Even as a kid, I was great at documenting the first couple days of our family vacations in journals or diaries, but somewhere along the way would lose steam and throw in the towel. That could happen with this too. And I think that it probably stems from this sense that I have, that to capture the way a moment feels in your heart is sometimes just impossible to do through words. I think it's the same with photography. Some things are better left in our memories, a place where only we can fully understand them.

With that said, I do see the value in attempting to share this adventure. I can't promise it will be articulate, or particularly insightful, but my hope is that it will serve as a means to connect us. Please don't let this be one way. I have no idea what this next semester holds for me, but just because I am seemingly caught up in it doesn't mean that I am not interested in your lives, wherever they are being lived. Send me e-mails, Facebook me, whatever- I am going to miss you all, and am certainly interested in what you are up to.

As for me, what I do know is that I will be gone until the end of July. The semester that I am spending in Jamaica will have officially ended by mid-May, and the rest of my time will be spent exploring the island, but also Central America. That's really all I know. And I am excited, and basking in the fact that all I have are grand ideas and the rest are yet to be determined. My prayer is that comfort, complacency or fear would not keep me realizing the fullness that this adventure could be, and would love if you would join me in that prayer. I've never travelled like this before- more or less independently- and while this is the opportunity that I have hoped for, it would be a fib to say that it doesn't slightly freak me out. Can I really do this?

So you can imagine that reading Donald Miller was a good fit as I prepare to leave. His writing spoke words I needed to hear:

Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.

I hope so. I hope that I return like our blue jalopy bike. Beautifully weathered and full of stories, proof that I lived this trip fully.

So goodbye. I leave on Friday, and my next post will be far from this horrible winter.

Peace and always love,
Allison