After most holidays, people compare the experiences that they had during that short period with holidays they’ve had previously. Was that the best holiday I’ve truly ever had? Was it better than that rose-tinted trip I had to Disneyland when I was twelve? Did the sights, sounds, smells, and other sensations I exposed myself to give me a higher level of pleasure and happiness than the rest of my existence? After your average holiday is compared with the rest of your life, the stories are filed in their mental shelves, where they will be accessed repeatedly in the short time following your holiday, but then decreasingly over time. My recent holiday to Seattle is something else – it is one of those truly unique, marvelous experiences that will likely form the core of my being going forward.
“Why the melodrama and hyperbole? Surely it was just a holiday? Just file it and be done with it.” a metaphorical critic might say. Well, figment of my imagination, you forget what exactly happened in Seattle. I traveled around a great city. I witnessed one of the most exciting and awe-inspiring Esports events of all time. Oh, and I also got engaged.
My mental doubter seems to have let himself out. Great. Now I can stop talking to a pretend person and go back to speaking politely to the Internet.
My two weeks in Seattle truly changed my life in multiple ways. Each aspect of the holiday – the tourism around the city, The International (the aforementioned Esports event), and my engagement – left me with memories and emotions upon which I will build. Each aspect of the trip moved me in different ways. As such, it feels wrong to lump them together into one sprawling tourism-Esports-engagement mass of experience and internal reflection. So, in the next week, I will form clear, considered pieces about each of the three aspects of my trip to Seattle. I’ll talk about what happened, how I experienced it.
I hope that you’ll join me for a detailed, week-long exploration of the link between my experiences and myself – past, present, and future. It’s amazing how much a two-week span can affect a person. I look forward to sharing it with you all.
Where Life Truly Begins 