RE: Sydney Bolen’s Diary (My Ins & Outs for 2024)

It all began on New Year's Eve in my twenty-eighth year of being single. For the first time in a long time, I found myself surrounded by new faces, and, for the first time ever, I spent the initial moments of the new year watching the various fireworks displays around the city from the safe and free vantage point of a North London balcony. As the sky lit up around me, I realized that the past few weeks I had spent feeling so unmoored and out of control of my own life had done me no good. If I wanted to stay in London– and spoiler alert: I do–the only person with any real say in that is me.

And so I made a major decision. I had to make sure that even if I did end up on a plane back to The States in six weeks. I wouldn't feel like I had failed myself. I woke up this morning and made a plan, not about how I was going to stay (That one is easy: apply to any and all job postings I can find that may or may not sponsor a visa), but about what exactly it was that I wanted to accomplish with my life, what would I want to be known for– real big picture stuff. I decided to start a diary to tell the truth about Sydney Bolen—the whole truth and to keep myself accountable.