At a loss for words (part 3)

It's somewhat fitting that when I get to the part in the story that left me speechless for the first time, I have no more words to say.

I can't tell you about Paris -- I already have too many times and stuffing it into words makes it into language, and I want to keep it in the same plasma state it was. I'd like to tell you -- about each moment and each now, and how the colors inside them blinded me, how everything burned and how I turned around one day and realized I wasn't lost anymore. But I can't. To do so would be a great disservice.

All I can tell you is that -- and what a silly, piddling statement it is -- I changed.

Maybe that's the theme I'm going for in this series, the only thing I can say for sure at the end of this mad, violent, busy, wonderful, intensely full period of life they call college. It's nothing but another door, but this door means something because I've changed -- but not just changed ---

I think the word I want is become.  I have become.

This past year, the final one, has been no exception. I spent the first semester staring at myself in a mirror and having no clue who was looking back, struggling to fit the life I had before with the life I had created. I knew I'd be culture shocked and thought I had prepared, but prepared to fight a monster whose face I didn't even recognize when I saw it.

Sure, there were the academics -- a thesis, for one --  but this year was about making a dream come true, and celebrating the journey. I think I did both spectacularly.

I have nothing more to say about it, which is not to say there is nothing to say about it -- about each year and each summer and each splendid moment that was terribly unperfect and perfect, and about this year, but again -- I can't. I've run out. Paris left me speechless and I haven't recovered my tongue yet.

I'm just the girl who has become, and turns to face the world with immense passion and determination. Who is either really stupid or a visionary, and I guess we'll find out soon enough.

It's been a fun ride. I wouldn't have wanted it any shorter or longer, any more or less, anything else than exactly what it was.

(Everything is always perfect, remember?)