Write about something that flopped.

Ugh. Another one that I have nothing to write about. I know these are few and far between, but I had a minute and thought I’d try to catch up again, and when I read this, I almost just closed out the window and gave up for another day.

Almost.

But then I didn’t. See, I know I’m not going to have an epiphany tomorrow or the next day and think of something that flopped…so I’ll never, ever get back into it. So I’m going to just sit here and try to think of something. Anything!

Okay. I got one.

And writing about things like this are hard – really hard – because they really show the imperfections of a person, I think. Like that babysitting deal I wrote about a while back. Revealing myself like that was really hard…and what it revealed was not as cool as I like to pretend to be. This is like that too.

Okay. I’m in college, and Ben and I and our friend Jeff are talking about doing something fun while we are still young enough to do so. I don’t remember what else we talked about, but the idea of saving up a little money and going to Europe came up. I remember thinking, Why not? We could do that.

And the thing is, we could do it. There was this program that allowed college students to come to England and work for a summer as part of their education. It wasn’t really a green card type thing; it was a student program, but you could still do it the summer after graduation.

I did a lot of research on it. A whole heckuva lot of research. We had all types of fliers and pamphlets and information. I sent off for all kinds of brochures. I knew the program inside and out.

The idea of it was exhilarating. This was shortly after my dad had died of cancer, during our senior year of college. Maybe that had something to do with how thrilling the idea was of throwing away the shackles of college and a future of work and wifery that I was heading into. To travel – I’d never gone anywhere. To go out of the country – it was an unimaginable possibility. Could it really happen? My head said no…but my heart said yes. The excitement that other people experienced could actually be mine. I felt like an adventure of a lifetime – an adventure of new sights and smells and ideas – was within my grasp.

Others said it would never happen. Part of me agreed with them. How could I possibly go to Europe? But I pushed that part aside and said we could do it. I figured out how much we would need to save each month to make it happen. I looked into hostels and other places to stay and things to in Europe. I thought that if I acted like it would happen, and believed that it would happen, it would happen.

I guess Jeff felt the same way – he even went so far as to get a passport. I never made it that far. The first month, we didn’t make our savings goal. That was okay; we could make it up the next month. But that didn’t happen, and we never met our financial goals for the travel expenses. Three months into it, I realized it just wasn’t going to happen. Jeff still talked about it for a while even after I accepted the fact that we weren’t going. That was hard.

I wish we hadn’t told other people that we were going. But I really thought it could happen if we believed in it enough. I don’t think Ben ever believed in it though. I don’t know if that made a difference or not.

Well, you’ve probably guessed from the topic of this entry, but long story short, we didn’t make it to England. Instead, we graduated and moved back to Tuttle.

It’s okay, but it is kind of a painful subject – not because we didn’t get to go to the U.K., but just the failure of the whole thing. Planning for something and believing that it would happen, and then just having to let it go like that was a real disappointment. It also seems vaguely uncool, and trying to appear cool at all costs is kind of my thing. I guess I’m going to have to start letting that go, huh?

What a fun entry! Thanks, 100 journal entry site! These memories are truly priceless.