how in the what did i get here

Hello friends and family! I am back on my blog! Wow. It absolutely blows my mind that I've been off this thing for 6 years. So much has happened since 2018. 

After Senegal, I went back to New Orleans and finished my degree. After graduation, I enjoyed one last hot Louisana summer with my friends, packed the car, and moved to California. In Los Angeles, I nannied for some of the cutest kids in the world before getting my foot in the door and working in TV production. In 2022, I went to Scotland and put on my own play at the Festival Fringe in Edinburgh. A few weeks later, back in LA, I met Louis, my best friend and best Scottish boyfriend ever (total coincidence!!!)

After nearly 3 years in LA, I changed my mind altogether and moved back to my homestate, New York, this time staying in Brooklyn. I missed my family and I grew jaded by the arts industry in California. I wanted to return to the theater, the literary scene, and the sort of independent film world that made me want to tell stories in the first place. I nannied again, took on a few theater jobs, and then decided I wanted to go back to school. I took another trip to Edinburgh, this time to meet Louis's wonderful family!!! And when I got back to America, I moved to my mom's new beautiful house in Doylestown, Pennsylvania to... um ... figure my life out. 

I set up a meeting with the honor's program at Tulane and asked if there were any scholarships I didn't know about seeing as I had negative money and a true desire to pursue an expensive degree that guarantees basically 0 jobs :) :) :). WELL. As it turns out, I had already missed the deadline for nearly every scholarship except this one, my advisor said, it's called The Mitchell Scholarship, and it allows you to pursue a 1 year master's degree in Ireland completely cost free. It goes to 12 people in the country. Oh and it's due in three weeks. 

I basically screamed for joy. If you know me, you know that I've always wanted to study in Ireland. This fantasy has nothing to do with Sally Rooney's Normal People (although that didn't help). I've wanted to study in Ireland since I was 15, my father had just died, and I was sent to Dublin for a National Geographic Writing Expedition that genuinely changed the course of my life forever. I wrote more extensively about this in my personal statement, which maybe I'll post on the blog. Anyway. 

It felt like pure destiny that the only scholarship I was still eligible for was exactly the kind of scholarship I would have dreamt up. I rolled up my sleeves, absolutely terrified, and got to work. I remember those three weeks like watching a movie in fast forward. I was writing at turbo speed, banishing doubt and negative self talk from my head with a sort of decisiveness I hadn't felt in years. And then... somehow... three interviews later... I got it.

I spent the next year at my mom's preparing. I worked at a coffee shop in town. Took an improv class and a short story class on Zoom with my Nana. Played lots and lots of music. I went to events for the Mitchell Scholarship and the program I chose in Belfast, and those events led me to unexpected places. 

I ended up at my first Hollywood event as an actual writer! The Oscar Wilde Awards, where I met lots of cool people. And in May, I put on a reading of my play Sunny Makes a Scene, in New York City at The Irish Arts Center. 

My first year living at my mom's house since I was 17 turned out to be not the regression I feared. I took the time to take care of myself, and it totally propelled me forward. 

With all of these wonderful things happening, I imagined my last few weeks before leaving for Ireland would be incredibly relaxing and creative. I planned to really solidify the good habits I cultivated, get ahead on my reading, brainstorm. Instead, my Nana's health turned, and I spent the last three weeks at my Aunt Katie's house in Connecticut, filling her last few days with love and laughter. 

My Nana died the morning after I arrived in Belfast, and, like my dad, it is one of the most tremendous losses of my life. Once again, for some reason, I came to Ireland to write and to grieve. To walk home through the rain, through the cosmic rinse of death, and to come out, a few blocks later, in the sunshine. I think. 

More later xx