Time is a relative concept.

There's no possible way to survive the spring forward time change unscathed. It doesn't matter if you manage to get ten hours of sleep when it occurs, which I did. Losing an hour of your life is surprisingly hard to handle.

Which is kind of funny when you think about time in general, right? I mean, we sit around spending hours doing pointless things. Sometimes, we'll spend an hour at Starbucks with our friend catching up over coffee. We'll give an hour to a preacher or other religious official, whether we listen to the sermon or not. There's always an hour to drop on Pinterest or Tumblr or Facebook. But when it comes time to buckle down and study, I've somehow run out of hours to spend.

I've heard it said that "time flies when you're having fun," but I think it's really a lot more simple than that. When we don't look at a clock, or don't pay attention to time, it ceases to matter. Just like when we sleep, we lose all sense of how long we're asleep for. Time is a concept that humans created, and when humans forget about it, time loses it's power.

We've got clocks everywhere: on our phones, on our wrists, on the wall of nearly every room we enter. I know plenty of people who claim that "it's annoying" when a room doesn't have a clock, even if they've got one or two in their possession. We're obsessed with this thing we've created, teaching our children from young ages that it's important to understand it, when ultimately, there's about a thousand other things that matter more.

Once you learn how to tell time, you fall victim to it, letting it encompass your life forever. You're late, you're early, you're right on time. You can't have coffee with your friends between work and class because it takes you too long to walk from Point A to Point B. Sometimes, I wonder what our world would be like if we had never established time as a whole. The sun would still rise in the east, wouldn't it? I guess it's just impossible for the world to run smoothly without some kind of concept to control us, to keep us all moving together, just like clockwork.

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'm a Grade A Scaredy Cat.

There's a big difference between someone being a "dreamer" and someone being a "do-er." I've always liked to imagine myself as a do-er, but the problem is, I'm really not. I tend to fall into the trap of self-doubt a lot more than I'd like to admit. Sometimes, I'm convinced I can conquer the world, but then there's always the reminder that I'm not the best, the brightest, or the whatever-est out there.

My issues of self-doubting stem from a long-time conflict that exists between my mother and I, but this isn't the time or place to address that. That's what therapy is for, right? Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'll never fully learn to believe in myself. With the constant fear of rejection suffocating me out of simple things like asking for a job application, I can hardly picture myself living out every single one of the dreams I've got locked away in this head of mine.

Maybe, just maybe, someone will take a chance on me. I'll wind up as the wedding planner I've always wanted to be, as the mother to a few gorgeous babies, or as the flight attendant on the international flight to Italy who gets to spend half her life living in Rome and the other half in the Big Apple. Or maybe, no one will take a chance on the girl who thinks she's not worth chances. I've always said my biggest fear in life is rejection, but really, I think it's deeper than that. I fear an un-lived life.

Stay Creative or Die Trying.

Recently, my blogging professor (yes, I attend a college that offers blogging as a class) invited a guest speaker to come and talk to us. I won't go into all the details of this man or what he said, but the most important thing that came from this speaker was the ever-so-simple reminder:

Stay creative.

Seriously, that's one of the most important things in today's world, but it also happens to fall into the "Most Forgotten" category as well. We're so focused on moving, going, working. We forget that life, as we know it, is actually quite short. You can't spend your entire life trying to fit into a certain box. That's not what we were created for.

Whatever you believe (or don't believe) as far as deities go, I don't think anyone will tell you that we live for no real reason. Deep down, I think every person wants to find that reason. For me, that's a big reason why I've fallen in love with the idea of wanderlust. It explains my ever-present need to get away in the sense of discovering the meaning of life, the reason I exist, and why I hate the taste of tomatoes. 

In all honesty, Dave Rhea had a lot of wonderful things to say. He's a really interesting guy to listen to, as far as speakers go. I'm not the most attentive listener in lecture-type settings, but he did a good job. 

"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.

What's in a name?

If you're not familiar with the Oklahoma City Memorial or the bombing that took place on April 15, 1995, you should read a little bit about it. Prior to the Oklahoma City Thunder, this was the most notable event that occurred here and was probably the one thing that most people connected to my home state.

There's a quote at the memorial that still, to this day, hits me right in the heart. It's the epitome of what it means to be an Oklahoman, at least in my eyes.

"The spirit of this city and this nation will not be defeated; our deeply rooted faith sustains us."

The words span the wall surrounding the Survivor Tree in the middle of the Memorial site. To lots of people that claim Oklahoma as their homeland, it's got a different meaning than just the bombing and aftermath. It's true in just about every aspect of life. You don't know just how strong you are until you've taken all you think you can handle, only to take another blow and find yourself still standing.

Things like this are a constant reminder of how important where I grew up is to who I am. Even if I'm out there, traveling the world and trying to discover myself, there's nothing like coming home to remind myself who I've been.