While conducting an archeological dig of my office, unearthing crumbling notebooks that contained the early drafts of all the books I have written, and all the books intended to write but somehow did not, I found a box of old photos. They were from a summer I’d spent in Europe when I was 20 years old, heartbroken and an utter mess, a pile of emotion barely held together by the straps of her crocheted halter top. It was 2001, my grandparents had just died, and I’d gotten dumped by my boyfriend. Over the phone. Four days before my grandfather’s funeral. (It is a story I relay in my first book, which you should read because it’s somehow sort of … funny?)

I made the sudden and financially irresponsible decision to skip town, buying a round trip ticket to Rome through London, to spend the summer with my aunt and uncle

Keep reading this article on Everywhereist.