You know the scene in Love Actually where Emma Thompson says, "Joni Mitchell...Joni Mitchell is the woman who taught your cold English wife how to feel." I am convinced that if the movie was remade today the artist she would be listening to is Taylor Swift. Taylor has songs for every emotion. There are tracks that make me feel in love (Daylight), sad (Bigger Than The Whole Sky), angry (My Tears Richocet), nostalgic (Fearless), and everything in between. But my favorite feeling that she was able to invoke is hope.

Right now, on the eve of The Ones That Write Themselves being published, I feel very much like Taylor's protagonist. I am reaching out to ring the doorbell about to show up at the party, and there's nothing I can do but see how it goes from here. I may have ideas of how I want it to go–who am I kidding? I definitely do– but from here on out, it is out of my hands. Tomorrow, this story will cease to be only mine and will become everyone else's to either love and cherish, ultimately ignore or even pick apart. That's a very scary thing to know you voluntarily are going to experience.

Here's some unsolicited advice for moving to a new country: prepare to be entirely and wholly exhausted. Granted, that may be the case for moving any non-local distance after you've made a life for yourself somewhere, but I wouldn't know. The physical toll of starting a new chapter aside, my final days in Los Angeles were jam-packed with work, activities, outings and last gatherings. Since the end of July, I have been faced with a near-constant barrage of goodbyes. And, for someone who is not fond of endings, no matter how temporary they are or how exciting what they lead to may be, it has felt like an all-out war on my senses and mental facilities.