A constant uphill battle

It's hard to look past the girl you see when you look at me. I'm loud, sassy, and seemingly confident. I'm in a sorority, I'm not exactly thin, and I'm convinced I was supposed to be born British. What you won't get by looking at me is that I'm far from what you'd think. Everyone is like an onion, and after the first few layers of toughness, you'll find a girl who takes everything to heart, no matter where it's coming from.

It's going on a year and a half now that I've been taking antidepressants. I've been seeing a therapist for a few months, something I wish I'd started sooner. Depression, anxiety, and self-doubt: these are hauntingly familiar things I struggle with on a daily basis. So while you see a girl sitting in your class who seems loud and obnoxious, I see the girl who struggles to find a reason to smile every single day.

I'm doing better, but there have been some really dark times. With the help of my doctor and my therapist, I have a shot at living a somewhat normal life, or as normal as I can be. I'm not saying that it's an easy fix, because it's really not. You don't wake up one morning and realize that it's all better. Antidepressants aren't a band-aid, they're a coping aid. One thing that's really started to help me is looking towards the future rather than the past, an idea that is reinforced by my love for traveling. I could sit around and look at all the places I've been and think, "Wow, what a great journey," but that seems like accepting it's over, which it's not.

I don't want to look back on my life and think I wasted a single minute doing something other than embracing life. Years from now, when the memories are being passed around at Christmas dinner, I want to be the one who has the best ones. I've been given one life, and only one life, so I'm determined to make the most of it. I'll be damned if some chemical unbalance in my brain is going to steal any of it from me.

The Last Round: Spring Break 2013

I haven't spent a Spring Break in Oklahoma since I was a sophomore in high school. Actually, I vaguely want to say I didn't even stay here then, but it's almost tucked too far back in my memory to remember. Let's just say that Spring Break is my thing.

2008 was a free trip to New York City where my yearbook advisor was invited to speak at a journalism conference at Columbia University. In 2009, he took us out to see the plant where our yearbook was made in Fresno, California, but after that one day of school-related business, we traveled up the coast to Coos Bay, Oregon. After graduating from high school, my position as editor no longer mattered, which meant I was on my own for planning (and financing) these trips, or so I thought.

My freshman year of college, I joined the Women's Rowing team. Spring Break was a week-long training in Cocoa Beach, Florida. We spent four hours a day in the boat, so after we all came back and got some showers in, the evenings were spent on the beach, at local eateries, or maybe even just sleeping. It was a rough week physically, because I ended up suffering an injury that meant I got to spend a little extra time with our trainer and each day meant I may or may not have lost my spot in the boat. We competed at the end of the week and I was proudly representing the freshman team in our A boat at the 6 seat. (I was a port, for anyone who knows a thing about rowing.)

Sophomore year, after quitting the rowing team and gaining a bit of a reality check in the form of financially supporting myself, I chose a little bit of a quieter Spring Break. My friend and I spent a week living in my cousin's apartment in Chicago. I felt pretty independent and cool, despite the fact that his office was only a few blocks away and I saw him nearly every single day. I spent my nights lounging next to his full-length windows as the sun set over the city and my days having lunch at some of the nicest restaurants in the business district. It was my second trip to the Windy City, what became the second of seven that year, and the first time I stayed more than one day. It was then that I knew, I could live in Chicago someday.

Last year, as a junior in college, I  traveled to the wonderful land of Arizona. We've done the Grand Canyon thing before, but this time, I was tagging along with my parents, my brother, and my grandparents on my mother's side. Also, there was a lot more action before and after the big hole in the ground: Spring Training. I'm a baseball fan, so getting to watch my Chicago Cubs take on my dad's White Sox was the highlight of the trip. (The free tickets to Colorado Rockies games from my dad's cousin, the manager, was a pretty great bonus, too.)

I'm graduating in December, which means this is it, folks. Maybe someday, I'll have kids who get holidays, but this won't ever be the same. So now, how do I rival all these wonderful trips I've taken in my last chance at an official Spring Break? The answer is simple: I'm going home. Not home to the city I've lived in for 21 years, but home to the city I fell in love with from Day 1: Chicago. Technically, I'm going to spend the week at my Grandma's in Illinois, but there's a couple days that are already book for Chicago. I'll be there for St. Patrick's Day, and being 21 for the first time means I'll actually be able to enjoy the holiday properly. So let's raise our glasses in a toast to The Last Round.

"I am a wanderluster."

That week before I leave town is always the roughest week of my life. (Okay, okay... That's a bit of an exaggeration. So sue me.) I'm the kind of person who writes down the days I'll be out of town in just about every available spot in my planner, not to mention the countdown running constantly on my Twitter. I have an obsession with getting out.

That's the thing that a lot of people don't understand when it comes to wanderlust. Yes, I absolutely love where I come from. I was lucky enough to be born in a picture-perfect definition of Suburbia. It's got the small-town (where everyone knows everything about everybody else's business) feel with just enough going on to keep you entertained on a Friday night. So yeah, it's pretty great.

The problem I face is that "home" for me isn't just about the house I grew up in. It's not the town I know like the back of my hand, the state that my Social Security Number assigns me to, or the country I file my taxes in. It's the emotions, connections, and sights that pull me out of the hole I sometimes dig myself into. It's about the feeling where my soul leaps from my body at the sight of unfamiliar territory. That's what wanderlust is to me. It's a state where I find who I am in places I've never been, in the faces of people I've never met.

If you're a traveler, you've had a tiny nibble of the seven course meal that is Wanderlusting. You don't have the fever, but by all means, you're more than welcome to catch it. There's a beautiful feeling when you find your purpose in life, and mine is pretty simple: to spend my life searching for things I can't explain in places I've never been.

Touching Down

There's a moment when you're suspended in the air. I've felt it a few times, and it's one of those rare instances where time stands still. You're sitting in a plane seat, either looking out the window or staring straight ahead, depending on your personal flying preferences. The plane's wheels are out, inches from the ground. This is the moment that makes the whole flight worth it.

You're sitting in a giant metal death-trap that humans invented to thrust into the sky and fly around. "We, as human beings, were created to stay firmly put on the ground," my grandfather would argue. The thing is, we weren't. We were created to explore, to fly and swim and jump and live. So we started small, working and building our way up into the massive planes that now jet around the country, around the world.

The way it feels, hovering just inches above the ground... It can't be matched by anything else. Gravity seems to have stopped in the moment, but that doesn't mean you won't wind up safe. No, if anything, you're more likely to come out looking like you just rolled through a car crusher. Your lungs fill up with air, your body can practically feel the entire plane's movements, and then the wheels touch down.

Sometimes, there's a bounce. Sometimes, it's a little rocky. Heck, sometimes it's smooth and you thank your lucky stars you got a pilot who's done this a million times. Regardless of how the aftermath feels, you're back in the safe zone. The plane returns to the terminal, you get off and return to the hustle and bustle of the world, that moment completely forgotten.

Unless you're like me, because then you spend your whole life searching for another one.

Where I'm From

Turning Home (Album Version) "Turning Home" by David Nail

There's something really wonderful about that little patch of earth known as my hometown. It's got a little sense of magic that fills the air at sunset. There's a hill just on the edge of town, right as you're coming in on Route 66, and if the sun's setting, the entire city has a glow. You can see the outline of the Mill, the stoplights at a few intersections, and the McDonald's sign. You don't get to enjoy it for long, but if you've been lucky enough to catch it, then you know the feeling.

Sometimes, I wonder what it's like to be from somewhere else. What's it like to call another place home, to feel this sort of passion for another city in another state and maybe even another country? I've felt drawn to places and I'm in love with places, but it's nothing like coming home.

Whether it's been raining all day or there hasn't been a cloud in the sky, the sight of my hometown can really get to me. It's changed since I was little, but it's still the same. There's a new high school building, a hospital and two Starbucks locations (one of them is inside Target, but I still count it.) The thing about my hometown is not that it's physically magic or all that beautiful. It's more about the face that it's tied to my memories. I got my picture on the front town of the newspaper for sliding down the slide at the grand opening of the new children's park. I used to ditch my tutoring class once a week with my friend Katie and we'd go get donuts together. I played softball on the city's public fields for thirteen years. Names, faces, memories: they're all connected to this place. No matter where I end up in life, there's always going to be something for me here.

My first taste of Wanderlust

There's a moment in ever wanderluster's life where the realization hits them. It's not always in the middle of some fantastic adventure or even in another country. If I think back on my life, I've always felt as though "home" was changing. I could feel at home just about anywhere I was: camping in the wilderness, sitting in my grandmother's kitchen, or watching the sun rise on a beach in Florida. I've always been lucky enough to travel, whether it was with my family or friends or some other opportunity. I remember hearing that I would be getting a free trip to New York City when I was a high school sophomore. As editor of the yearbook, I was given the chance to visit one of the most popular destinations in the world at the measly age of 16. To say I was excited would be an understatement.

The yearbook adviser chose my mom as our "chaperone" to accompany him, myself and the other editor on the trip. She was just as excited as I was and we immediately planned out all the places we wanted to visit. From Columbia University, the host site of the event we were attending, to the top of the Empire State Building, we pretty much saw every tourist attraction in the city. I remember standing in the middle of Times Square thinking it was a lot smaller than I pictured it in my mind. I remember riding the Ferris Wheel inside the Toys-R-Us and taking pictures with giant candy bars at Hersey.

The moment that stands out most in my mind, however, is a bit quieter than the rest. It's softer, almost like a dream. There's a spot in the giant room where immigrants used to check in that has a giant window. If you aren't looking out it, you'll miss the sight, but nearly everyone catches the Statue of Liberty caught in the window. It's this exact moment when I realized that I was more than a tourist. I was a traveler. Caught up in the feelings of all the history of the place, it's easy to think more deeply about traveling as a passion. But the feeling I found there hasn't once left me. Ever since then, I've spent every spare moment chasing it, and it's taken me to some pretty amazing places. Along the way, I've also discovered quite a bit about myself.