I, as a person, am many things. I am a woman of many interests, several passions, and insurmountable ambition. I also have an addictive personality, which means I easily become absorbed in those interests and passions (as well as my materialistic obsessions with chocolate, coffee, and The Big Bang Theory). But in the past few years, I have diagnosed myself with one more ailment: wanderlust.
Wanderlust is the act of pining for movement – for journey, adventure, exploration, or trailblazing. Whatever you might call it, it is the desire to keep searching for whatever lies beyond our own horizons.
I have been a college graduate for nearly a year now. I balk at that statement, having spent the better part of my young life thinking I would never grow up, and that I would never finish school. To finally be on the outside of that world – a world filled with deadlines, study groups, test anxiety, rules, and administrative corruption – is unnerving. But it is also wonderfully, delightfully, unbelievably, and inexorably intoxicating. The idea that I can do whatever I want, when I want, and how I want with my own life is enough to make one feel stupidly and euphorically drunk on power.
Naturally, I cannot up and take off for those adventures I desire at any given moment. No matter how spontaneous I am, there is always some sort of planning required – and it is almost exclusively related to finances.
Regardless, there are ways to make those plans and line all my ducks in a row. I am realizing with every passing day that I now have the power to make things happen. And make them happen, I shall.
Exciting things are on the horizon. I am in my early twenties, a time when adventure and opportunity are assaulting me around every corner – and every door seems wide open. Which one shall I take? Do I take the door that leads to hard work, devotion to a career, and a routine lifestyle, with the prospects of my first vehicle purchase, first mortgage, a wedding, and a family to aspire to?
Someday, yes.
But right now, that is not for me. It’s not on my horizon; it’s far past it, after I have run and danced and explored and investigated the open world waiting out in front of me. The door I choose to take right now leads right to the edge of the world.
So stay tuned in the coming months for some rather thrilling adventures – and consequentially, an abundance of stories about them.
“You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” – Dr. Seuss
“The world is your playground, of this there is no doubt. Seek and explore it, and run all about.” – Henry Cole