Chapter One

May 8, 2016

Chapter One

*Note to the reader: The date at the top left is the date that the original journal entry was written, the date accompanied by name is the date that it is being typed in. I may play with the format, but that is simply to clarify confusion.*

     It doesn't feel real yet. It may never feel real to the point of breaching acceptance that I am genuinely here, now. I put pen to paper with a smirk as I write 'Chapter One' because a close friend told me that I would as a heroine putting quill to parchment which I suppose makes me the bard and the warrior or maybe the mage, but let's face it I'm a bit of a healer too...and a scribe. See, this is why I never got into those games because I wouldn't be able to choose. However, in any case I suppose (for me) choosing to go on the adventure in the first place was the hardest choice. In one of my last conversations in Tennessee she held a gift behind her back, took a deep breath and said, "From the moment I truly became your friend you have always reminded me of two of Shakespeare's women (then with a smirk)...and they are?" "Well Beatrice obviously," I replied because she is my favorite and I am far too snarky, ferocious, and willing to be challenged not to empathize with her, but there was another. The brave soul charting lands unknown and finding herself in her journey (I laughed because pay no mind to the fact that there was cross-dressing in the process). Viola. So as I sit in my uncharted lands feeling not quite so brave yet, it seemed only appropriate that the chronicles of my (mis)adventures be scribed within the pages giving her (me) homage.

     He was in the wrong building. I descended the escalator looking for the paper with my name on it, but there was no one. There was no one awaiting me at all. I accepted this, but paced with vigilance until I heard someone frantically shout my name. After fervent apologies on his part, we packed my things and drove. We talked about a great deal as he drove like I was simply meeting up with an old friend after a long time away. As I looked out the window I knew that the signs were foreign, the roads varied just enough to question protocol, but I didn't feel like I was in France, but simply another state I'd never had the chance to visit. Sure, there were the wall made out of porous rocks or the narrow streets made of cobblestone, or the quiet allusion to places I had dreamed of since I had learned of them as a girl that even nuanced to the fact that I was not in proverbial Kansas anymore.

     Even the children and I hit it off, they took to me immediately (though any time around each other and I've no doubts we'll drive each other crazy). As I sat at dinner I had the sensation that these were not strangers to me, nor was I in a strange place. I feel so...at peace here. It just feels...right. Oh it has, at times, been a shitstorm of one bad situation after another, but I know without the shadow of a doubt that all of it happened to bring me to this point. I am beyond words. This is a great adventure and while before I arrived I had a sense of happy panic, now I have a sense of what I can only describe as an anxious sense of belonging. Oh, of course all my anxieties are amped to 11 and the idea of speaking my broken French to a native speaker of the language sends my heart pounding, I made it here so the hard choice is over and I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

-Alicia R. Farrar

(5/17/2016)