What Are You Going To Do After Graduation?

This is the question I have been asked countless times over the course of the last year of my life, but particularly this semester, and particularly more frequently as the days have passed.

It's April now. I graduate next month. And I have no plans as of yet for the future. It's a daunting fact and a realization that carries power with it to haunt me for days. I don't have a job lined up -- least of the beginning of a career and I don't have the first idea where I am going to live. It's terrifying.

And yet, I have remained pretty calm throughout all of it. At the beginning of this year, my goal was to find a job by second semester. At the beginning of second semester, my goal was to find a job by spring break. After spring break, my goal was simply to find a job. And it hasn't been for lack of trying. But I just don't seem to be having any luck.

I've applied lots of places. Locally, and in Boston. All last week and the week before, I have sat in class, multi-tasking as I attempt to feign interest in whatever the teacher has been talking about, while simultaneously sifting through internship opportunities and online application portals. I have revised my cover letter so many times, I think I could recite the introduction paragraph by heart. I have pleaded in desperation to companies to please hire me, veiled thinly with phrases like "I await your response" and "let me know if you have any questions". And all to no avail.

I just spent some time surfing through Boston's Housing Wanted link on Craigslist where I ultimately posted an ad asking for a room to stay in during the summer, even though I have no job lined up and no money for a down payment. What can it hurt?

I so don't have my shit together. I don't have a place to live -- here or there -- and I don't know where I'm going to work after May 14th. Sure, I've booked myself a roundtrip ticket to France for a two-week post-graduation vacation in the country I love, but upon my return, I will be landing not only in Wichita, but in reality. A reality which is likely to see me unemployed and homeless.

Over the last several months, my friends have been discussing apartments in Wichita and things like rent and roommates. They've started new jobs at big companies and things are looking great for them and their continued lives in the Midwest metropolis which is Wichita. But not for me. I want something more.

Of course I do. I always do. And isn't that exactly what always gets me in trouble? I demand euphoria, excitement, drama, perfection. I need things to be big and bold and absolutely not boring. I have to go and do things on my own and far away from everyone else. I can never simply be satisfied to stay where I am, and live my life among those who seemingly do not long for faraway places in the same way I do. No, I have to make things difficult on myself.

I know that, but I also know that making things difficult is just another way of saying that I am making things worthwhile. All the struggles and moments of sheer fear when I have no earthly idea of what is coming next, that's going to be the stuff that makes it meaningful later on, right? Right?

Nobody has the answer for me. Least of all, myself. Nobody has any idea what is going to happen to Alyssa in the future, or even right now, for that matter. And that thought alone is enough to make me want to enroll in more classes until I die.

After graduation -- out there, in the real world -- that is the place where scary things happen. The unknown lurks around every corner and there are bills to be paid and responsibilities to be had. It's the total opposite of the warm security blanket of college education which has coddled me for the past eight semesters. It's a harsh wake-up call from an angry mother with a shrill voice the morning after a night out with friends, as she rips the covers off of your face and turns your hungover, disoriented world upside down. It's sudden, it's scary, and it's very, very real.

And yet, I find it most comforting to recognize the fact that there are others who are in the very same boat as me. Even though I haven't had enough time to catch my breath in two weeks, even though I have an exam tomorrow which I should be studying for now, and even though I won't see the end of my to-do list until a few days before graduation finally arrives... I think it is somehow calming to accept the fact that I am not in this alone.

Sure, I may be freaking out about my future. But everyone does, at some point. And yeah, hindsight is always 20/20. But foresight? You're going into that blind. There's no way to tell the future. There's no way to know if the next best decision of your life lies just around the corner. There's no way to know. Until you get there. You just have to go.

You just have to have faith in yourself and your life and know that whatever happens, will do so for a reason and it will all inevitably lead you down the right path at the right time and you will arrive exactly where you are meant to be, to stumble upon the opportunities which are meant for you. And that's horrifying. But what other choice do you really have?

So no, I don't know what I'm going to do after graduation. I don't know where I'm going to live, either. Maybe Wichita. Maybe Boston. Maybe France. Maybe somewhere else entirely. I may work two jobs earning minimum wage as a barista and a waitress, putting in 50 hours a week. I may land my dream job tomorrow when one of the internships in Boston finally replies. I just don't know.

I haven't the foggiest. Because, for the first time in my life, the protective, familiar structure of academia has not dictated what I am supposed to do or where I am supposed to go. I am free to choose what I want to do, where I want to go, and who I want to be. I am vulnerable and, finally, I get to make all my own decisions. That's terrifying, and I haven't really figured it all out yet. And that's okay. I'm twenty-two and new at this. I don't have to have everything figured out. Thanks for asking.

The Pleasure and Pain of Travel: Always Holding On, Always Letting Go

I know I am young - a few weeks shy of twenty-two - and I have not experienced nearly enough of the world. I've only ever been to three countries and I haven't even graduated college yet. But I still have my fair share of valuable experiences to offer me guidance and to help me continue to grow.

Something I have learned during my short time on this planet is that life is a balance of holding on and letting go. This lesson became especially close to my heart after I experienced a little bit of traveling and learned what the world looked like from the other side. Of course I had experienced the joy of cherishing a moment before, as well as the anguish of letting go. But it really wasn't until I took myself so far away from my comfort zone, acclimated myself and got comfortable, then had to leave again, that I had a deeper grasp on understanding how these feelings work - or how natural and common they actually are in so many parts of life.

Falling in love is so easy. I can fall in love with anything, really. People, places, food, television shows, boy bands, clothes, foreign languages... There is a doe-eyed, hopeless romantic hidden away deep inside of my heart, and she loves to love. Over time, as is the case with many people, the romantic inside of me has learned some tough lessons from her own experiences with pain. But despite being immersed in agony at times, she remains eager to explore the world and all it has to offer, greeting everyone and everything she encounters with an open mind, an open heart, and a ravenous curiosity.

A few years ago, I fell in love with traveling. I had no idea what I was in for, but I know now that when it comes to not being heartbroken, I never stood a chance. I went to France for a summer to study abroad as a sophomore in college, and my life - and my heart - was changed forever. I fell in love with the abstract idea of traveling itself, as well as the country of France, the culture, the architecture, the food, and most importantly, the people. I had no idea how difficult it would be to let all of these things go when I had to come back home.

Last year, I went to Boston for half a week by myself. Nearly everyone I talked to thought it was such a terrifying idea, a single woman flying across the country alone. But I had to go. I had to know what it was like in the city where I'd never been before, but that was calling me steadily towards it. I needed to experience it for myself. My heart needed to feel what it was like. Four days came and went, and before I knew it, I was on a plane heading out of Logan Airport, just like that. Once again, I felt that familiar twinge of sorrow as I watched the tops of tall Bostonian buildings fade from view as we rose higher into the clouds.

All of these experiences and memories - all of the things I think of fondly when they cross my mind - make me so happy because I hold onto them; I do not let them go. I keep these wonderful tidbits of my life safely tucked away in my heart, filed between other sweet memories like childhood birthday parties and perfect first kisses.

I remember how it felt when that plane landed in Paris at 9:30 in the morning local time after almost 24 hours of traveling. I remember the warmth I felt when I hugged my two adorable and ornery little host sisters for the first time. I remember the fun I had together with an American friend as we drank and flirted with French boys on a Saturday night.

I remember boarding my connecting flight in Atlanta and hearing Boston accents in the rows near me, as we prepared to head northeast. I remember slurping oysters and drinking beer in the oldest restaurant in America after a morning of solo kayaking on the Charles River. I remember the blisters on my feet after a long day wandering around the big city in a sundress and taking photos of skyscrapers.

I would never willingly let any of those memories go. I cherish them. They're beautiful pieces of my life and together they help add up to me, so I clutch them tightly, very near my heart. But I have learned, after some time, that there are things in all of this mess of life that I do have to learn to let go.

Each semester, there is inevitably a new crop of international students who arrive on campus and who create unforgettable ripple effects in my life, if only for a moment. Each semester, after finals are over and celebrations have begun, the time comes when I have to say farewell to a friend I've known for four months. After seeing this person on a daily basis for so long, I have to accept that we will only be communicating over Facebook for the foreseeable future. I have to hug them and tell them to have a safe flight and try not to be sad about someone else leaving. And each semester, it never gets any easier.

These feelings wash over me when my new friends leave for other continents, mainly because of the fun we've experienced and the relationships we've shared across international borders, language barriers, and cultures. But I think these moments remind me of something else, on a deeper level; something that shaped me during such a pivotal moment in my development as a traveler: the morning I had to leave my host family in France.

It was early enough that the sun hadn't yet risen, and in France during summer, it seems rare that the sun is ever down for long. This was such a gloomy morning in comparison to the sun I had known for four weeks. I put my last few belongings away and zipped up my suitcase, carried it down the stairs, and prepared to tell two precious pieces of my heart good-bye. I remember trying in vain not to cry, and hugging my host mother tightly like the American women we are. I remember a sleepy seven-year-old, in the backseat of the car as her family prepared to leave for vacation, wagging her finger at me and very seriously telling me to "continue à apprendre le français" because my French sucked. I remember closing the door, and walking away toward the tram stop, rolling my suitcase behind me, and bawling like a baby.

I remember feeling as if some kind of monster had reached down through my throat and ripped my heart from my chest. My heart, which had just previously been smothered with love, compassion, curiosity, and wanderlust. My heart, which I thought I was keeping safely inside my rib cage, but which had somehow found its way out onto my sleeve. I had built such strong, beautiful, meaningful bonds with so many people in such a short amount of time, and now I was being forced to tell them all good-bye. It didn't seem fair. To subject a human being with such a vast emotional capacity as myself - who feels things before she thinks things - to such an emotional roller coaster ride, is simply cruel. Unless... These feelings exist for a reason, and they are there to teach me something about myself.

Historically, I've never been particularly good at letting go of things once I have become emotionally attached to them. And why would I be? I don't think it's something which is necessarily natural-feeling or innate to human beings. Moreover, it was certainly not something I was explicitly taught to do growing up in Western culture. So I knew how to hold on, how to fall in love with something or someone. But I had no idea how to get over it and let it go once this wonderful thing was gone. I didn't know how to handle the time after it was over, or what the grieving and recovery process should look like.

Boyfriends, sure. I'd loved them and lost them, and strangely enough, gone on to be better than fine without them. Best friends, yeah. I'd lost them too, and I knew I would be just as well without them. Family members and pets, I'd lost before, and I knew how to grieve then. But this was different. This was more than a person or an animal leaving me.

The notion of traveling as an abstract idea is fascinating to me, because it is so malleable and able to be customized to fit any individual's experience. No two people travel the same way, either literally through the rugged countryside or metaphorically throughout life. It is deeply personal and the traveler oftentimes learns more about themselves during their journey, than they originally set out to do. So how can something so beautiful that offers such wonderful experiences, also be the cause of such heartbreak and pain when it's over? Well, that's true with anything we love, isn't it?

Life is a balance of holding on and letting go, but you've got to not only know how to do both, but you've also got to learn when to do both. Perhaps most importantly, you've got to learn that both are equal and necessary counterparts to life and have faith in yourself that things will work out as they are meant to be. You've got to learn that letting go of the experiences and people you love is a part of life, and although it causes you pain, that is only because it first brought you so much pleasure.

The catch about being so alive and feeling so much pleasure, is that the parts of your brain and heart which feel that pleasure, can feel exactly that same amount of pain. All that your nerve receptors do is receive the message you send to them, and transmit it back with the same intensity, regardless of what the feeling is. And if so much love and euphoria can send your heart flying into the sky, that means that anything which hurts it can just as easily bring it crashing back down to the ground. It can be scary. The fact that something like intersecting lives and connecting souls around the world can affect you in such a way, and that it can influence and shape who you are as a person, means that we are vulnerable to being molded and changed at any time. But isn't that beautiful?

The first reaction to pain by many people, is to run from it. To ignore it and avoid it. To try to tough it out in hopes that it will go away. But that approach seldom works for the person experiencing it, and that's how problems go unresolved for quite some time. What if instead of running away from our pain, we ran towards it instead? What if we reach out and touch it, embrace it, hold it close and let it crack apart all the beautiful pieces of our heart and then use the fragmented voids to fill it up with a new kind of love? Get downright vulnerable with our pain. Let it wash over us and consume us, because if we do, it will heal us.

At first pain demands that we feel it - and we do. Then it sucks for a while. But eventually, if we run toward it rather than away from it, we will run so far into it that we meet ourselves. And when we come out from the other side of whatever this painful experience is, we will have changed. We will have been transformed into a different version of ourselves, and there will be no going back to the people we were before. Feeling so deeply can seem like a curse sometimes. But at other times, it provides you with a euphoria so much higher than everybody else. And that makes it all worth the pain.

I've grown so much and learned a lot about holding on and letting go during the last few years of my life. I have fallen in love with people and places and then a short time later, had to leave, every bit as in love as when I arrived. I've driven friends to the airport and hugged them good-bye, and told myself I'll see them again someday. My life has been touched by so many people, places, and experiences, and there's no doubt it is all the richer for it. But that's exactly why it's so hard to let go.

As a traveler, nobody prepared me for the moment when I'd have to say good-bye and return home. As a person, nobody prepared me for how to handle loving so many people in so many places at once. I don't have a solution as to how to let go, because I'm honestly just not very good at it yet. But I know life requires balance, so that must mean that I have to let go in the same capacity and intensity with which I try to hold on.

The people I love will still be there the next time plane tickets go on sale. The places I long to explore are not going anywhere, either. Maybe in the future, I can go visit my international classmates on their soil, rather than waiting for them to return to America. There are so many options for letting go.

Once your heart has made a connection to traveling, once you understand how liberating and beautiful it is, then you begin to understand why it's necessary to let go. By its very nature, traveling is a transient act. You move. You go. You leave. And while that certainly means something incredible is waiting to be seen ahead, it also means you're leaving something else behind. The beauty is found in the act of leaving, of letting go and letting be.

Travelers who master this art have simply opened their hearts so wide, that it has shattered time and again from the pain of leaving love behind. But they understand that anything which is beautiful is also oftentimes shrouded in pain. They open their hearts to feel all of the wonderful things about exploring new lands and new people. But in so doing, they make themselves vulnerable to feeling all the torture and anguish that comes with it, too. And in turn, that shapes and molds the person they are, just as any experience with love does. That's how we know we're alive. One of the most beautiful things about the human experience is that we can feel a full range of emotions from touching the lives of others, and having them touch ours; whether that happens when we are holding on, or when we have to let go.

30 Day Writing Challenge: Day 13 (Your Commute To and From Work/School)

Day 13: Your commute to and from work/school

I live and work on campus, so I don't have much of a commute to either location. However, since the addition of the shuttle buses last year, I will say the commute has become much easier for me than it used to be (when the buses are running as they're supposed to).

On Mondays and Wednesdays, I catch the 9:15 bus to campus and ride it three stops to go to class in Clinton at 9:30. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I catch the 7:45 bus and ride it the same distance for class in Clinton at 8:00. On both days, I leave class and walk less than five minutes from the building my class is in to the building where I work.

My commute home is even simpler. I walk across campus about ten minutes to the last bus stop before the one at the dorms where I live and ride the shuttle for about five minutes to get across the busy intersection. The time at which I return home differs from day to day. I don't have class or work on Fridays, so I usually don't make any commute to campus.

I recognize how convenient this commute is for me, even in comparison to the commute I had when I worked a summer job a few months ago. Even living in a city the size of Wichita, I still had to drive 20-30 minutes each way. I know bigger cities require a much longer commute, and that both excites and inconveniences me. (What a privileged problem that is to have.)

While I was in Boston for less than a week this summer, my commute from the city's center to my Airbnb house was about an hour, requiring I change trains twice and then ride the bus to one of the last stops before walking another two blocks to get home. I liked it and disliked it at the same time, but regardless, I've certainly improved at navigating public transportation.

I remember my French host dad telling me that when my host family lived in Paris, he used to have to ride the métro an hour to and from work every day. The métro terrified me the handful of times I used it, and it was always overflowing with sweaty strangers, packed in tightly like a few hundred French sardines.

For now, I've got a commute which is extremely easy, and I'm careful not to take it for granted. But at the same time, I welcome new and exciting changes with open arms.

You Will Actually Have To Work Hard To Get There

"I don't want to move all the way there, have no job, and have to live in my car!"

"I did."

"But it's so far away -- halfway across the country -- and it scares me sometimes."

"Excuse me? Do you know who you're talking to? And when I moved here, there was no Internet!"

Arguing with Kate has never proven itself to be a very successful, worthwhile activity to me. Especially not when I know that she's right (which accounts for about nine out of every ten of our arguments). Kate and I have both come to know that eventually, a few weeks after she suggests something to me, I will usually decide she was right and do whatever it was she told me to do.

I usually call Kate "my academic advisor" when people ask me who she is, but my rightful academic advisor is really some person who sits in an office in the basement of the business school and tells freshmen what classes they need to take. I honestly couldn't even tell you which advisor is assigned to my student ID number. That's because over the course of the last three years, every time I've had a question pertaining to the university, my major, or any future career options I may have, I've always just sent Kate a Facebook message immediately after the question occurs to me. (Usually there is an abundance of follow-up questions included, and the questions always seem to come to me frantically sometime after midnight.)

In reality, when I met Kate, she was the Assistant Dean of the business school. She has a long list of esteemed credentials and titles to her name, but most importantly to me, Kate is the woman who saw some flicker of potential in me as a sassy, seventeen-year-old high school senior when I entered a scholarship competition all the way back in 2011; and she is one of the people responsible for choosing me as the recipient of an extremely helpful sum of scholarship money to finance my college education. In essence, one could reasonably say Kate is the reason why I am at WSU.

As I mentioned, Kate has known me since I was seventeen. I am now closing in on twenty-two. I cannot emphasize enough how much a person changes over the span of those five years. I will also say, that for better or for worse, Kate is at least partially responsible for some of those changes. As I have grown and changed since the day we met in November 2011, so too, has our relationship.

The one constant that I secretly hope will never change, however, is that Kate doesn't put up with any of my shit. She has heard all of my excuses about how I am afraid of being a real adult, how I despise math and hated all of those required business calculus and statistics classes, how I love my on-campus job and don't want to push myself to find an internship which will pay better. And she has tolerated absolutely zero of all of it. There have been times when I have been highly irritated with her pushing me to do something I was simply too lazy or unwilling to do, just as I know there have been times when she has rolled her eyes at my lazy unwillingness and known, to herself, that at some point in the future when I finally decided to agree with her, I would do it. She is one of the only people I've ever met, besides perhaps my own mother, whose stubbornness contends with my own.

The particular conversation we were having on this day was one we have had many times, in many forms: what am I going to do after I graduate? I can tell you what I want to do after I graduate. And Kate has told me endless times that she knows I can do what I want to do after I graduate. The only remaining piece of the puzzle is connecting point A to point B, crossing my fingers, and hoping it all works out.

I want to move to Boston. I want to work for a publication -- no particular one, but one that fits my views, naturally, be it writing about feminism, travel, international peace and humanitarianism, or be it researching consumer behavior and target markets in the publication production industry. Beyond those two goals, I really just want to be able to afford an apartment (probably with a roommate), buy cute clothes at Target, and maybe visit my family in Kansas on Christmas. They are certainly not uncommon or grandiose goals, but from the perspective of a recent college graduate moving alone 1,625 miles away from her birthplace with relatively little money saved and impending student loan payments due in six months, every day these goals feel daunting. The goals are simple: Move to Boston. Work for a publication. Simple, although not easy.

You know how earlier I said Kate is sort of like my academic advisor? Well, she's also sort of like my free therapist. For the umpteenth time, I was whining and crying to her about how I was terrified of being poor and alone with no job prospects in my dream city, and she ruthlessly shut me down. You see, one thing I also forgot to mention earlier about Kate is that she was born in Taiwan. In addition to naturally possessing a high amount of tough love, she further feels no pity for me moving a few states away to Massachusetts because she moved halfway across the world to another country and learned another language, while working multiple jobs and putting herself through college to eventually become a professional businesswoman -- all by herself. So I guess it really comes as no surprise that she wants to smack me sometimes. I would have done it by now, if I were her.

So, this discussion we were having about me moving to Boston was going in about the same circles as usual:

"I want to move to Boston."

"Then move!"

"But I'm scared."

"Scared of what?"

"Being poor."

"Then get a big girl job now and save your money."

"But I love my job."

"Then get another."

"But I don't have time for one!"

"Well, I don't know what to tell you."

"Ugghhh but Kate!"

*silently purses lips and gives me motherly side-eye*

And this is how it goes. See? I told you I would've smacked me by now.

That conversation is actually what sparked me writing this very blog. When I told her I was afraid of having no money and having to live in my car, she told me that she had done that very thing before, as if it were just an expected part of the struggle I was knowingly signing myself up for by falling in love with a big city. Then, when I started complaining about being so far away from my family and friends, she was rightfully appalled, because she also did that very thing back in 1990 (pre-Internet, as she reminded me). Then she said, "Write about that! Talk about your struggle, because I promise you, there are a lot of other college students standing in your shoes right now. They will relate!"

We had this conversation two weeks ago. And here I am now, delayed long enough to make the decision on my own, typing away because Kate told me to. Just like clockwork. (Although, the blog intended to be about the college struggle has actually materialized as a blog about Kate, instead.)

When I think about the situation from Kate's perspective, I shake my head at myself because I realize just how privileged and lazy I am. Kate worked much harder to get where she is today than I am working to get to Boston by this time next year. I think that's just it though: I didn't realize that I am going to have to actually work hard for it. Of course it's going to be hard. If it were easy, it wouldn't mean as much. If it were comfortable, it wouldn't make me grow.

Kate chose me as a finalist so many years ago because I demonstrated something to her that made her feel I was a good investment. I have never asked her what that was, and I don't plan on doing so. I prefer it remain a mystery for my own imagination. But I can tell you this: whatever it was that I had, I'm sure glad I had it. I am so grateful that Kate liked what she saw and that she extended her hand to me, on the behalf of some very generous scholarship donors, to pull me up and help me through college, thus making possible all the experiences that come with it.

Now I don't know this for sure, and I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth, but I'm betting that Kate didn't have a Kate when she was in college. Most people are not lucky enough to have a Kate in college, someone whose tough love and persistence supports and pushes them throughout the entire process. I would wager to guess that she was not the recipient of such a benevolent gesture as I was when I was awarded that scholarship package. I don't think she has ever had anything handed to her. That's not to imply that I have had things handed to me, or to say that I haven't known my own fair share of struggles, either. But it certainly puts things into perspective for me and makes me think hard about how badly I want to move to Boston and what I will have to do to get there.

There comes a point in time when a flower outgrows its limited environment, and it needs to be transplanted from its small pot into a bigger garden so its roots can continue to expand, stretching out like cramped legs to gather nutrients to provide the plant with life, otherwise it faces a slow and painful death. If I don't take advantage of my opportunity to grow and develop in a bigger environment, staying where I am will stifle my desire to leave and eventually it will permanently stunt my growth. My roots are smothered and crowded and itching to break free of the pot into which I have been crammed for so long. I need to find nutrients in a bigger garden in order to sustain my life.

I want to move to Boston. I have to move to Boston. I need to get out of Kansas. I know that I am capable of feeling more fulfilled than I do here. I know that people are capable of better understanding me than they do here. I want to reach the high of euphoria again that being in a place I love so much brings with it, and which is impossible for me to ascertain here. I have to go explore what is out there waiting for me, otherwise I will never know.

I have always been one to do what I want. The more I want it, the more likely I am to do it -- and more quickly. I will do anything I have to in order to get what I want. Both of my parents can attest that I have been this way since I was a child. It is intrinsic to who I am.

Even with my vast vocabulary, I cannot adequately explain how badly I want to move to Boston. So, if working hard is what it takes to get me what I want, then I am going to do it, quick and with a passion. Especially when I stop and think about how much harder Kate worked when she was in similar shoes.

I remember during one of the presentations at that scholarship competition in 2011, somebody told us, "Kate is here to help you. But she doesn't come to you. If you need help, you go to Kate." Well, I've gone to Kate for help more times than I can count. And she has endlessly given me her help when I've asked for it. She has shared her knowledge and experience with me for years, trying to guide a stubborn girl in the right direction.

And now, eight months from graduation, I guess it would be a pretty good time for me to think about doing what she tells me. After all, I wasn't selected as a finalist because she thought I wouldn't listen or work hard for what I want. She knows what she's talking about when it comes to all of this, because not too long ago, she worked hard to make it on her own very similar journey. Thankfully, I will still have a Facebook connection for when I run into late night identity crises and career catastrophes in Boston.

Welcome To New York (Boston).

I was driving to work last week, weaving through busy rush hour traffic on Rock Road. Taylor Swift's 1989 CD was absentmindedly playing as background noise in my stereo, as it has been since the album dropped last October. I was preparing to spend the next several hours begrudgingly earning $7.50 an hour around co-workers whom I didn't like, and customers whom I liked even less. I wasn't exactly in the brightest of moods. Then, through the haze of my own bad attitude, I heard good ol' T-Swift crooning to me the words I needed to hear, like she's done hundreds of times before.

You see, I have a dream. Many dreams, in fact. But the dream currently responsible for the high in my life is one about travel, one about adventure and freedom and finding myself. Like many young people before me, I yearn to leave my safe, familiar comfort zone and get wonderfully lost in a new, giant, mesmerizing place, eventually making it my own.

And since the day I bought it three months ago, I have been all too aware of that plane ticket to Boston with my name on it.

I'll be heading east on a grand, new exploit of my own, in as little as twenty-seven days from now. That's the dream that's been fueling my passion through the mundane activities of two summer jobs and three summer classes since the middle of May. What has filled my sails with wind as the days dwindle away is anticipating the joy I will experience during my short four-day caper in the city that will hopefully soon be my home.

So last week when I heard Taylor Swift's lyrics in the song she wrote about her love for New York City, even after hearing them and mindlessly humming along to them time and time again for months on end, I paused. I thought about the gravity of her words.

"Like any great love, it keeps you guessing

Like any real love, it's ever-changing

Like any true love, it drives you crazy

But you know you wouldn't change anything, anything, anything"

I have been a dedicated T-Swift fan since "Teardrops on My Guitar". I was there for Taylor when she was just a sixteen-year-old girl who lived in Nashville and wore cowboy boots and sundresses to the Academy of Country Music Awards. I remember when she said that Nashville was her home, furthermore, that country music was her home; and that she'd never dream of cutting her hair or moving to a big city like NYC or LA. Well, well... how things change.

"Welcome To New York" is Taylor's declaration about how she fearlessly fell in love with a city, with its people, and with the experience itself. And, like any Taylor Swift song, she is vividly painting a picture of it as one huge, beautiful love affair. Taylor Swift is in love with a city. And why not? A city is just as full of human emotion as the people who inhabit it.

These lyrics are the ones that spoke out to me last week on my drive to work. They were casual and commonplace, yet they were gently reminding me to keep pushing myself toward whatever it is that draws me in, to whatever feels right to me.

You see, love comes in many forms in this lifetime. And heaven knows I'm a sucker for falling in love with new places. It's been barely over a year since the Travel Bug bit me, and the virus has only been incubating and growing stronger within me this long; it has not been dormant or forgotten.

Travel will surely keep you guessing, much like life itself. How am I to know what lies around the corner for me? How am I supposed to find out, if I'm never brave enough to take the steps necessary to arrive at the corner in the first place?

Travel is certainly ever-changing, most obviously by the number of possible destinations one could choose to explore and make their own.

And travel is definitely enough to drive a person crazy, especially those of us who so quickly get emotionally attached to people and places, with little foresight for the consequences we will inevitably face when the time comes to leave.

But I wouldn't change anything. Not one single part of the delightful, possessive, magical beauty that is creating my own home in a place faraway from anywhere I've been before.

In the few seconds it took for my copy of 1989 to play those lines, my brain and my heart merged into the same wavelength. For one fleeting moment, my mind and soul were alive with the wondrously dangerous combination of adrenaline and oxytocin that only comes from love. To people who have ever traveled before to some other place and who have instantly fallen in love with the new scenery and the new perspective of life, no explanation of Taylor Swift's love affair with New York is needed. We already understand, because the feeling is pumping through our veins with every beat of our lustful, wandering hearts.