And. I'm. Back.

Hello my blogging friends. It has been awhile. A long while. 14 months and counting to be exact. But I am back, and I hope to stay awhile. Much has happened while I was on my blogging hiatus. Namely, I got into business school and will be moving to London in precisely 3 months. You may have remembered a post in January of 2009 when I professed my love for the London Business School. Well I got in, and although Kellogg was a close second, London ultimately prevailed. Sometimes you need to listen to life’s subtle (or not-so-subtle) hints. Like the fact that every time (EVERY TIME!) I tried to visit another school or attend an info session or go to an admit weekend, something would happen that would stall me from attending. Kellogg admits weekend? Blizzard of the century in PA - flight was cancelled. Stern info session? Happened to be the one day a year that it was cancelled. Columbia? Flight cancelled out of Dallas! And on and on.

But although it’s completely obvious that London is where I belong, it’s still met with some degree of hesitation: can I really DO this? Is this the best path for my career? Will this yield the best investment for the long term? Can I really leave everything I’ve built over the last 26 years? I can continue with these questions for days, but what it ultimately comes down to is this: my gut.

So I’m moving over the pond soon. Packing up 26 years of memories, armed with my American clothes, my American roots, my American education, and my American ways, unsure of what exactly to expect apart from a whirlwind of change.

How did I get here? It’s funny how life works sometimes.

According to Elizabeth Gilbert, acclaimed author of Eat Pray Love, the key to a well-lived life is to: “Screw up (often, and boldly), learn from your mistakes, repeat.”

So maybe that’s how I got here. Gilbert goes on to say:

“Let's just anticipate that we (all of us) will disappoint ourselves somehow in the decade to come. Go ahead and let it happen …While you're at it, take the wrong job. Move to the wrong city. Lose your temper in front of the boss, quit training for that marathon, wolf down a truckload of cupcakes the day after you start your diet. Blow it all catastrophically, in fact, and then start over with good cheer. This is what we all must learn to do, for this is how maps get charted-by taking wrong turns that lead to surprising passageways that open into spectacularly unexpected new worlds. So just march on. Future generations will thank you-trust me-for showing the way, for beating brave new footpaths out of wonky old mistakes. Fall flat on your face if you must, but please, for the sake of us all, do not stop.

Map your own life.”

I couldn’t agree more.