I am not dead.

The result of the summer is that I am not dead.

I came a bit closer than I have before, though. Not closer than a lot of you out there have probably come; I don't want to exaggerate my experience. It was closer for me.

I feel different, and not entirely sure of who I am. Or perhaps, rather, who I want to be. Or how my identity as a writer fits into that.

I feel a bit like Alice, I suppose. "I could tell you my adventures — beginning from this morning," said Alice a little timidly: "but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then."

I had stopped perceiving myself as a person with a future. I have one. That changes everything.