25 and under. Way down under.

My first glimpse of New York City, from the plane.

The last time I wrote here, it was also the end. I was leaving Sydney in a matter of days, and I couldn’t bring myself to write it down. Soon enough, I was out in the bush, in the middle-of-nowhere Australia, and when I got back to Melbourne I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting down and documenting my last trip. Telling everyone about the last new people I met, about how I felt the furthest, despite being the closest, to New York I’d ever felt, about sleeping out under those billions of stars. And with only a few days to go in Melbourne, I refused to sit down at the computer while what little, precious hours I had left in Australia ticked away.

Even when I got back — it didn’t seem real, I wasn’t home home, was I? L.A. to Austin to New York — they all felt like more destinations in my journey. Coming online to blog about leaving? About it being over? No. I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t over…it wasn’t real.

It still isn’t, to me, but it’s time to finish this blog. I am not 25 anymore, I am no longer under.

And so it goes.