It's the ninth!

And you know what that means.

Today is the 8th month anniversary of the World Cup. My trip was eight months ago, and I'm still learning things from it. I still carry with me the things I found on that trip.

Before I left for Europe, I thought that being grown-up meant being miserable. I had lived as a grown-up for a year, and that whole time I was miserable. I figured that joy belonged in childhood, and that everything left for me was going to be ugly and hard. I thought that everything I had believed in was stupid and niave, and that it was best to dig deep and stay there. That life was something to just get through.

Today is the celebration of my awakening. Today is the monthly reflection of how I came back into life. I talk about gelato and sunburns and soccer and bus rides and belltowers. And it's ridiculous how I can't stop talking about these things, and how they could be so important to a person. But it's something worth celebrating, and it's something that needs to be talked about and remembered every now and then.

Today I read my journal from the trip. Here are the words of a changing person.

""Right now my life is one big 'andiamo,' one big 'what are you doing sitting on your butt? You've got places to see, people to meet, things to accomplish, a life to start. Let's go.' "

"I have to change things. I have to think differently. I have got to stay me. I hated who I was this year. I can grieve, but I can grieve like Rachel. I can be wildly and unbearably sad, but I won't forget to write every day, I won't become cold and angry, and with time, I will get better. This isn't forever. The stuff that made this trip wonderful, those things are forever. It's still a fight, it's still hard, we can still doubt. But if we choose forever, we get forever."

"These two weeks have been the most intense time of my life. This was a journey of remembering how to live, finding all of the good things I used to be, and learning new things about who I am. I opened myself up to the world again, I laughed and breathed and learned and lost myself like I used to. This trip reminded me of the good things- showed me the good side of growing up. I had forgotten there was good, still. I had forgotten that life isn't always something to just get through. Life is good, and big, and there is enough of it out there for me to live."

" 'So take a shower, shine your shoes. You got no time to lose. You are young men, you must be living.' "

" 'And God's not through with you, in fact he's just getting started.' "

" 'I think that we've got what it takes to get this heart to start beating again.' "