It is hard to write the beginning of a story when you don’t know how it will end. The reason I am starting this journal is because I am going to Asia for an extended amount of time. I could start describing details of my travels from the minute I step into the airport in Minneapolis with a one-way ticket to Mumbai, India in hand. But I am looking at it differently. My vision of what this journey is and what it will become is constantly changing the closer I come to actually boarding the plane bound for India. Before even getting on that plane December 12th, I will have already driven over 2800 miles in about a week just to reach Minneapolis International Airport.

I plan on leaving San Diego on my last day of AmeriCorps service, November 30th and drive north to Washington to see my friends in East Lewis County for a few days before heading east to Minnesota. This will certainly be an emotional week and a half, having to say goodbye to my new family in San Diego, to seeing old family in Washington, then on to home in Minnesota, all the while being overshadowed by my ensuing trip overseas. But I see this not as two separate endeavors, but as one giant, continuous journey.

Even though I don’t leave the country for two months, I have already begun the trip. I have already realized my time in San Diego is winding down. In addition to buying supplies, creating a packing list, and getting immunizations, I am already preparing for that morning when I have to say goodbye to San Diego. The end of my time here, though, does not represent an end. Rather, it is just a point on a longer line that includes San Diego, Packwood, Arden Hills, Mumbai, Kathmandu, Bangkok...This time, right now, it's not the Prologue, it is a chapter somewhere in the middle of the story.

Articulating and predicting the present and future scenarios and emotions is futile, so I won’t go on anymore about that.