What it all means.

One of my last stories before hitting the tile floor of Heathrow Airport in London for my direct flight back to the States is the Tube ride back into Heathrow. I said my goodbyes to my cousin and took a different train up the Circle Line up towards a Piccidily Line. I was listening to some really awesome music on my iPod and I really couldn't undestand how this kid from Indiana (me) could be so comfortable on the Tube after being terrified riding it 4 weeks previous. You see, something had changed about me and the funny thing is that the entire experience has done this to me in various ways. Through friendships made while traveling through Ireland, London, Scotland and Paris something had changed about me. I had finally after years of searching gotten over a few things that were keeping me from being myself as well as understood that I was old enough and independent enough to get away from the person my parents have wanted me to be and what I want to be myself.



On that train I thought back to my first smell of European air, my first pint in a pub, my first conversation with a local Brit, my first booking of an airline to a foreign country, all of my firsts. It was in that moment when all of it sunk in, I was leaving and with it a part of me was leaving and another part of me was changed forever. On that train when Don Mclain's song "American Pie" came on indeed the music of old in me "did die." I found out something about myself, I found what I was made of, discovered a new culture learning about customs and what is similiar and different in my world back in Indiana from the UK, and I had made some great new friends who have a bond with each other that words can't describe, I had accomplished goals and dreams that were mearly just for show at times in my life, and for once I had done something diliberately because it was important to me, like discovering the Lourve, drinking wine under the Eiffel Tower, and playing a round of golf in the sport's birthplace. I had made friends that will hopefully last a lifetime, and in essence realized how important going out of your own comfort zone is, as well as how fickle stereotypes can be. I had experienced some of the greatest times and some of the worst times, but in overcoming the worst and experiencing the best I have realized that I have the ability to get through them on my own and move on.

Jumping over the pond was a very fitting title for this blog, I literally jumped into a foreign country with both feet and not looking back. In doing so I have grown up and become a better and more improved person. In the days, weeks, months, years, decades, and lifetime to come I will never forget what went on in these 5 1/2 weeks, how I grew, and what I learned. Sometimes jumping without looking back, though fearful is one of the best decisions a person can make. The most liberating feeling is that I can say that because I experienced it, and not because some book told me to. So to all of my benefactors, friends, family, co-workers, and strangers who read this. I thank you and wish for you all the best.

Cheers mates, good craic.