Whoa...it's a blog.

There's an old video game where you climb a tower that supposedly leads to Paradise. At the top of the tower is a vast, white, empty space. In this space you encounter the Creator, who tells you that everything you've done so far has been a test, and you've passed. You don't like that very much, so you fight him (and win, of course). What could possibly be left in a story after you've met God himself? Just a door. A character in your team asks you where the door goes to. You reply, "Another world." Then, "Let's go home!" And you walk away, in the OPPOSITE direction of the door.

As much as I love the tower-of-babel type myth, this ending was always the most frustrating thing ever to me. How can anyone possibly walk away from the opportunity to enter and explore an entirely new world? In this last year of college I've though a lot about what I want to do next in life, and for a while I thought I'd do anything not to have to move down South (where my parents live now), ten hours away from everyone I know. But after thinking about it more (and exhausting other options) I decided to give it a shot for a while. And the closer it gets, the more I think I'm going to be glad I went through this door.

My friend Scott and I recently had an adventure in New Brunswick. We walked through a park and to a path by route 18 covered in miles of beautiful graffiti. To get to this path, we had to squeeze through a broken metal door and follow a ramp over the highway and down a flight of stairs. We got to talking about doors and what they mean to us. In this case the door serves as a passage to one's own personal secret world. But doors are also beginnings and endings. Often they're both at the same time, like when I got in my car today to leave Kate's house and start the long drive to Charlotte, formally ending my every-day life in the tri-state area and beginning a new one.

One T. S. Eliot quote (of all the ones I can't stop repeating to myself since I wrote that thesis) that resonates with me a lot at the moment is, "In my end is my beginning." I was on a plane a few months ago reading an Alan Watts book and at the bottom of the page was a quote by Jesus very similar to this, something along the lines of the way up being the way down and time being non-linear. A little later I was having a conversation with the middle-aged Catholic woman sitting next to me. We started talking about spirituality and she mentioned that biblical quote (which I happened to have open in my lap). I held up the book and showed it to her. Later on she said I have a bright soul. I live for coincidences like this, they're the most amazing thing in the world to me and they happen all the time. I guess the point is that even though I'm really sad to be far away from so many wonderful people, tomorrow is the start of something entirely new, rich, and exciting, and I'm hoping both to keep in touch with everyone and to keep sharing as much as I can here!

I miss you all already, and I love you all.

There are a lot of other less serious things I want to blog about now that I've got this blog thing started, but for now I'm gonna get some sleep (in this motel room in New Market, VA...huh?) so I can finish the last five hours of my drive tomorrow.

Sweet.