postcards

I just sent out 16 postcards. Of course, there was a line I used in all of them. I personalized each one because that is the point of sending a postcard. To share an experience, relating it to whom you are sending it to.

As a journalism major, I feel the pressure of writing so very eloquently and describing this experience as Julia Roberts would in Eat Pray Love. I'm not planning on pulling a Diane Lane of Under the Tuscan Sun and writing, "Ding Dong Ding goes the bell." But I have been here for over a month. Thats a lot to fit into one little postcard, along with inside jokes and personalization. Plus, I will admit, most of them were written under the table in class today.

This trip for me is not about proof, but I know thats what postcards can seem to represent. Postcards, pictures, gifts from overseas... its all proof to show our friends and family that we saw something, learned something, and experienced something.

I mean, I'm all for taking pictures for my own personal memories. I will also continue to send postcards and buy a few small gifts for friends and family because it is a way to show people that I am thinking about them, and that is genuine. But, I feel like sometimes, the meaning behind it all is to prove that you've been somewhere.

I hope my friends and family see it more as sharing an experience rather than proving where I have been.