Chapter One

Hi! Welcome to my blog! I’m so excited to be writing my first ever blog post. To start a blog has been a little sprout of an idea living in the back of my mind for a while now, and the new year and a completely new setting have simultaneously created enough motivation for me to finally allow it to come to fruition. Over the pandemic, I began reading a few blogs, mainly written by girls around my age simply documenting their thoughts and lives. I didn’t even consider the possibility of creating my own, though, until I applied to study abroad during my sophomore winter term. Writing this now, I’m on a plane somewhere above Greenland, on my way to Copenhagen, Denmark, where I’ll be living and studying for the next six weeks. After that, I’m headed to Mérida in the Yucatán region of Mexico, where I’ll be staying for another six weeks before returning to Carleton for my spring term. Studying overseas through a program completely separate from my college was a very intimidating idea at first, as I won’t know anyone at all when I arrive in both of these places, and I have never traveled abroad before. However, I never hesitated when applying to the program. I’ve always known that traveling was something that I wanted to do, and studying abroad especially has always been the first step towards confident solo travel in my mind. 

It’s really such an exciting idea to me; it feels like the perfect opportuning to explore a new place in a more or less structured environment, to become accustomed to the rhythm of travel, to meet wonderful new people, and to learn about other cultures and ways of life.

I honestly believe that it’s so important to make an effort to use writing to reflect on our thoughts and feelings during every chapter of life. That’s not to say that I’m a devoted journalist, in fact, to journal more regularly has been a goal of mine for many years, and one that I’ve consistently failed to reach. However, I do think recording your thoughts is so incredibly valuable. It creates an opportunity to think through character shaping experiences as we are living them, and allows us to look back at our lives through the eyes of our past selves and visualize our ever present growth. 

In particular, many of these musings about life, memories, moments, etc. were prompted by my freshman seminar English class. For our final essay, we were tasked with the project of writing a letter to our younger selves. I remember going to a coffee shop in my small college town one day, putting in my earbuds and writing all ten pages of the letter at once, just letting the words spill out onto the page as they appeared in my head. I read it over once, tweaked a few things, and turned it in. Later, during the summer, I was organizing my Google Drive when I came upon that assignment. I opened it and read it with new eyes, unclouded by the slightly panicked productivity mindset of finals season. Rereading these letters to little Grace, I found myself tearing up. I had split the letter into three sections, one addressed to elementary school me, another to my middle school self, and a third to high school Grace. Reading through them, I found myself learning from the lessons I had been attempting to teach my younger selves. So many parts of those letters felt so deeply personal, yet also reminiscent and appreciative of the younger version of me and how far she’s come.

After I finished reading, I found myself inspired by my own words, and considered attempting to begin journaling again. Though I didn’t follow through at the time, I’m hoping that this blog can become something of a combination between my own personal journal, and a way to share my experiences with others. It really seems like such a wonderful way to tell my story as it happens, and keep you all in the loop on my little adventures, too. I guess that’s why I decided to name this blog "Love, Grace", because I hope for it to become a collection of letters to all of you and to myself, written through the perspective of the version of myself who lived those moments. Thanks for reading!

Love, Grace