So there I was listening to her album at work and getting so engrossed in it that I was forgetting to do the tasks at hand. I find it so incredibly inspiring that she can sing with so much heavy emotion in her voice. She can have me question my own relationship for the 4 minutes and 45 seconds it takes her to sing Someone Like You and then allow me to snap back to reality when she finishes, realising my relationship is fine. For those few minutes she gives so much that I absorb every emotion she expresses as if it were my own. If this were a couple of hundred years ago, she would surely be tried for witchcraft, such is the power she exudes.
What I found even more inspiring, is that these songs have only been written in the last few years. For all the 22 years of my life that preceded them, I had plenty of favourite songs for a million different reasons. And all that time, Someone Like You was just waiting to be written. Don't You Remember was itching to be born and Rolling in the Deep was trembling with the anticipation of what it could do if only someone would bring it to life. What this means to me is that for all the many years that are hopefully yet to come in my life, there are so many new favourite songs still hiding in the shadows.
For all the infinite number of songs that have been written already throughout time, and for the thousands of times a song has sounded 'just like' another, no one ever writes exactly the same song as has been written before. The very idea of this is so exciting to me. This is what life is about.
The same concept applies to our Europe trip. I question whether this site will ever be of use to anyone else. Soul Buddy is planning a trip around the UK with a detour to Paris and while all of my research is sitting here waiting to be of use to someone, she is finding things I never thought of. Researching is part of her journey, just as it has been with mine.
Just as new songs will never be identical to old, no one will ever take the exact same trip as I do (well, except Courtney!). For every suggested itinerary I've ever looked at online, I've never been inclined to copy a single one. No one will ever copy mine. No one has ever seen the exact same countries in the exact same order, on a bike, with a tent, with a boy, or for the same music. Which means that even if billions of people over thousands of years have seen the Colosseum, no one has seen it like I will. I'm the first to see Europe, at least as I will see it. This is why I like to travel. The possibilities are endless.
