Dear Me, How I Love a Library

That’s the thing about a human life-there’s no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed." - Elizabeth Gilbert

I just finished (and by just, I mean several weeks ago) Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love. I was a big fan, partially because her trip to discover herself has some paralells to my own trip to Europe. How long has it been since you've done something for yourself? I'd been so caught up with everything in college, that I hadn't taken a break to let myself go. Here, I can see the world, and figure out what I really want to do with the rest of my life, define myself, and figure what the heck the rules are, who defines them, and if I want to follow them or not.

In the book, Gilbert has a theory that each city has a particular word that everyone in the city is driven by (Rome's is apparently sex), and if your own word doesn't match, you'll never quite fit in. I've been thinking a lot, about all the places I've been and about my own word, and I have to say, I think she has a point.

I think Buffalo's word is pride. Everyone is all about home-town pride, the good-old-boys, "the Bills will win the Superbowl next year." The city has it's own long history, which is now in decay, but evident all over the place, and everybody is intwined in a network of family relations where the latest gossip is about the newest thing your children did, the newest addition to the family, or the latest marriage.

Moscow's word is easily learn. Everyone in the town is there to learn - about school, about life, about each other. Even the teachers and the town are participating, because it's so centered on the University. And Chambery? Well, I'm not quite sure about that one yet.

But I have found my word. It's grow. It's a verb, because I like the physical action of things. And I always want to grow - through acquiring knowledge, by meeting other people, by reaching personal goals, by having new experiences. It's what I want to keep pushing for...throughout my life. And the great thing about growing, is it doesn't have to end, after today, after school, after this trip to Europe. I can grow as long as I'm open and willing. After all, if you're not growing, what are you doing?