Time changes everything and everyone.

"But if you close your eyes,

Does it almost feel like

Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You've been here before?
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?"

-Bastille 

I heard these lyrics a year and a half ago on a crowded bus in Italy on its way to Pompeii. My best friend, of just three months at that time, was obsessed with this song called 'Pompeii' and wanted me to hear it before we got to the actual city. I remember it like it was yesterday, I nodded my head along to it without really listening to the lyrics because I knew how much she liked it and I wanted to show her I cared...even though I didn't appreciate the song until much later.  

On that day, I was a sophomore in college. I was studying abroad in Rome, where I thought everything was perfect and nothing could go wrong. I had a brand-new group of friends and had a crush on one of these friends. I was nervous about what my new friends thought of me, I was trying to switch from wearing dresses to being 'edgy', and I still used Instagram filters. I was dreaming about the idea of becoming a Zia (Aunt) one day soon and thought that having a niece would be the best thing ever, but was satisfied with having two amazing dogs for the time being. I listened mostly to One Direction and had never seen a single episode of How I Met Your Mother. 

Flash forward approximately one year, the lyrics above rang through my ears everyday as I walked in towards the Farringdon Tube Station in London. I exchanged cobblestones for 'mind the gap' reminders, pasta for chips, and wine for strawberry lime cider. I have another brand new group of friends and only talk to a couple of my friends from Rome. I have replaced my dumb crush for a full-on romance with London. I am wearing boyfriend jeans, tennis shoes, and studded bracelets. I am becoming obsessed with mobile photography and street art. I have a nephew. A perfect nephew that I now can't imagine life without. I am trying to figure out how to only have one dog. And I am listening to these lyrics everyday. 

Flash forward another few months and I am writing a post about these lyrics. I am sitting in a room with my eyes closed imagining how it felt to walk down the streets of London to this song. I am thinking about how my nephew is nine months old and when I first heard this song he was just an idea. I am thinking about how maybe this song is wrong. 

When I close my eyes, I feel like everything has changed. 

Things I wanted to change, things I wanted to stay the same, things I didn't realize could change, even things I don't know have changed...have all changed. I am a different person than I was when I first heard this song in Italy and when I listened to it everyday in London and when I listen to it now.

I will be back to blogging as soon as my schedule lightens up! I love this blog and want to make sure it remains an outlet for me to document the changes in my life, good and bad.