A New Journey

Dear [someone/anyone/anybody who cares],

Tomorrow is the day! I leave Newark on a nonstop flight to Shanghai at 11 am and will be gone for 6 weeks. It hasn’t fully hit me that I’m going yet, though. I mean, I packed yesterday, said my good-byes to my friends here at home and ones to my friends at school last week, but it just doesn’t feel real yet. Excitement is starting to kick in somehow despite reality not. As much as I will miss home I am looking forward to the adventure it will be. I know it will only be as good as I let it be, so I am going to be completely open to any and all experiences. It should be a good stepping stone for me as I leave for Japan later this summer for 5 1/2 months to study abroad for the fall semester. Not that anything has really gone terribly at school or in my life lately, but I feel like this is the perfect time for a new beginning.

Driving with a brilliant sunset in my rearview mirror towards a glorious sunrise.

Starting now, I will have no regrets in life. Everything that happened in my past, good or bad, happened for a reason… I truly believe that. It has helped shape who I am today, and while I am well aware that I am not perfect, or anywhere close, I am going to accept who I am and embrace my identity. So in order to do that, I must accept my past, learn from it, and move on.  I’m excited and ready for this new journey, the emotional and the physical.

Winston Churchill said, “Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.”

Love,

Ally

TODAY’S PLAYLIST

Ready To Go (Get Me Out of My Mind) – Panic! at the Disco

Hair – Lady GaGa

I Wanna Be Free – Panic! at the Disco

Set Fire to the Rain – Adele

Rolling in the Deep – Adele

Heart Song – Automatic Loveletter

Memories – Panic! at the Disco