An unnecessarily detailed response to a simple question

I'm not looking for anything or any person. Just kind of seeing and being hopeful.

I used to think I was looking for "the one", my soulmate, my match. But I've come to decide that this single soul doesn't exist for every phase or moment in any person's life. There might be someone who fit in my life two years ago, or 5 years from now. And there might be someone who is able to be in my life throughout the ups and downs and the natural cycles of complete uncertainty and utter bliss. Either way, I do not actively seek a person, rather I just hope that someone else believes this as well and we can fill the ebs and flows of the other's.

Although I am a person who lives my life with pure, incandescent love, this is not what I seek. I have had a lot of love in my life, and also a lot of heartbreak. So, while I love Love, I just hope to end up with someone who makes me laugh. Because if there is humor, everything else will surely just fall into place.

I kind of see it like this: If I happen to meet my soulmate online, or in a class, or while grocery shopping for embarrassing feminine products and/or a disgusting plethora of candy and frozen dinners, that's fine with me. If I can trick a Spaniard into marrying me, that's cool too.

I am not hoping for a someone. Just a feeling, I think.

If someone were to call me 'crazy', I wouldn't exactly disagree

This sunny day marked the last time I will have stepped foot in a classroom at Grand Valley. So it's very interesting, the emotions that flooded me today.
I'll give you a run down:

Upon waking up this morning: 
-"fuck this, I'm snoozing for another half hour"
-half hour later..."Shit! I still have Spanish homework to finish before the exam!"
-Rushed, pressed for time to get everything done.
-Oh yeah, I should probably shower today.
-Exhausted, despite not even staying up that late (only about 1:30). Granted, I had just worked a very stressful shift for 8.5 hours. Either way, it was odd that despite getting 6 hours of decent sleep, and despite having pulled many all-nighters in my day, I was dragging ass this morning.
-After finally getting in my car, having to run back up to the room and grab the book I forgot, getting back in the car, and just before I called Abbie, it dawned on me that this is the last day. Had a mini- freak out, but carried on.

Upon entering the classroom of doom just before the exam I did nothing to prepare for: 
-"Uhhh, shit, I should have studied"
-LAST EXAM EVER, LAST EXAM EVER

While on the third of sixth page of the exam: 
-A bit relieved, it's not so bad after all, She went easy on us, etc.
-"Tits, yeah! I've got this! Spanish is my bitch! Woooo!"

Page 3.5 of exam: 
-"Shit, I should have studied"

Post Exam: 
-HOLYSHITOMGI'MEFFINGDONE!
-again, relieved. It wasn't as bad as I made it out to be, should have studied more (or at all).
-Last time at GVSU I'm turning in an exam. Last time walking out of this building.
-....
-Suddenly, ACTUALLY aware that this is the last time...

Walking out of my favorite professor/lab coordinator/mentor/advisor/friend's office, after he helped me sort out feeling scared, and uncertain, and broken, and lacking confidence, and telling me that he is proud of me and my accomplishments, noted that I have nothing to worry about because I am a competitive candidate, I have a lot going for me, and that he thinks I will do great no matter what I choose to do, and that he would more than happily write me awesome letters of recommendation for whatever program/school I choose to go to, and after I witnessed him getting (jokingly) sexually harassed by another favorite professor of mine, and after he thanked me for everything and gave me a huge hug:
-Someone is proud of me
-Excited
-Couldn't help but smile a huge, stupid smile and silently laugh to myself when the smile couldn't be contained
-So relieved and more self-confident than I've ever felt in my life
-Accomplished
-HOLYSHIT

While walking to my car, on a beautiful sunny day, on the last day of my final exams I'll ever have to take at Grand Valley, and while reminiscing and playing a stupid montage in my head of memories of Grand Valley, to the theme song of 'The Office': 
-God, I love 'The Office'
-Shock, I think.
-I. am. really. done.

In the car on the way back: 
-"Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry"
-.....
-"CRY IT OUT, GIRL!" and I fucking bawled.
-Lonely. The loneliest I have honestly ever felt in my entire life. After such an amazing interaction with such an inspiring person who showed me that I have a lot to be proud of, I wanted to shout to the world how happy and accomplished I felt. How I finally had someone to vouch for me, who appreciated my hard work and dedication. But, instead of shouting, I drove back with the radio off. Down a road that I had so many times been on, with old friends, ex loves, and people that I don't even remember. I drove past places I had been with these people, people that are no longer in my life, people that don't know who I am anymore. I crossed intersections I had run across at 2 in the morning, bike trails I sweated on, sidewalks that were a safe haven to me on sleepless nights. As I left campus, I felt this wave of grief, this loss, a piece of me, but now less attached. And I did this alone. I traveled this path that I had, for 4 and a half years, traveled with someone else, and for the first time I was doing it by myself. I didn't have anyone to shout my excitement to. I didn't have anyone to share my feelings of loss, of accomplishment with. So, although I was on this lifted cloud, feeling so elated and so truly happy, I also felt that cloud sink with heaviness when I realized I was there all alone. I think I finally got what I wanted, but I had no one to share it with.
-Oh, the irony.

So, there it is, a little run down of my emotions and (crude) thoughts from throughout the day.
I'm currently still in shock, hasn't fully hit me yet. Avoiding memories. Wishing it was warmer outside. Heavy. but Free. Relieved.

So. Relieved.

Your Stage Awaits

So, as I stood in the huge line in the backstage area of the arena, I knew it was about to be a moment, a piece in my life story, that I will never forget. This, just like many memories I have from Nicaragua, inside jokes with friends, will be a time in my life that I will look back on for many years to come.

As the grads were lining up, I had my phone stuffed in my dress, mostly so I could find my family when the thousands of people exited the building all at the same time, but also partly because I felt somehow connected to the people who love and support me. I texted Abbie, I updated my Facebook status, but I knew I had made a huge mistake when I dialed my mom's number. The mistake wasn't that I had simply called her, but that I had called her while about to walk across the stage to graduate. She was already a lovely bundle of emotions, and I guess I hadn't realized I was as well.

"I'm nervous, Mommy," was all I said.

Despite being short with her the night before, calling her a "crazy person" multiple times, and not saying goodnight, I felt this huge wave of relief as my mom spoke to me on the phone in that moment.

"You're going to do great. I am so proud of you."

I didn't mean to cry, but my eyes just kept filling, and then emptying down my perfectly made-up face, and onto the name card I had in my hand.

I didn't want to walk, I considered several times leaving through the very welcoming doors right out into the streets of Grand Rapids. I almost avoided this entire thing, making it less real, possibly, that I was closing one of piece of my life, and about to open up another mysterious one.

Looking back, it's hard to say why exactly I was as emotional as I was. I think my main motivation was that I was just plain and vanilla lonely. In front of me in line was a tall, ginger man I'd never seen before, and behind me was some girl with dark brown hair, who sat down when we were supposed to stay standing, and when they announced that the "candidates receiving their Baccalaureate degrees" to please stand, she obviously didn't understand that mean Bachelor's Degree.. whatever.

I didn't know anyone around me. There was a familiar face here, a quick nod of acknowledgment there, but most of my time spent backstage before the ceremony was spent in my own head, not speaking to anyone. I realized that this was MY accomplishment. My victory. My day. I didn't need to be there with anyone, walking with anyone, sitting next to anyone. I just needed to look up into the crowd and see my mom wiping her eyes, my little cousins and brother waving frantically, and my soulmate and my brother, Nick, smiling at me.

For most of my life I had been this person who needed approval, validation, or permission. I constantly sought acknowledgment or for people to be in agreement with me and my decisions. When many relationships I had had fallen through, all around the same time, I became slowly aware that I can make choices, I can be my own person without being dependent on what others might say in response. I can live my dreams, seek what I need to, and live my life in the manner I want to, and I don't have to wait for a yes or no. This support I had desperately been searching for has never NOT been there, though. I realized that on Saturday, as I, the first in my family's generation, went to and graduated from college, the people who still remain in my life after questionable decisions, risky moves, and ups and downs, have always supported me, despite all those things. These are the people who I will never have to worry about leaving my side, or questioning my motives. These are the people who watched me shake the hands of my professors and deans, who saw as I made this incredible rite of passage from one chapter to the next.

So as I was standing in line looking through my phone, my aunt had texted me a picture of the stage. Her caption was, "Your stage awaits... You are surrounded by love." Then I turned off my phone, shoved it back into my dress, and walked on into a place filled with applause, hoots of joy, and I'm sure, many, many happy tears.

Outlooks Nuevos

So, after after nothing particularly exciting or inspiring happened in my life, I have suddenly become so excited about my up-coming trip. I am completely aware (as is my bank account and my neurotic mother) that I have yet to do many things in preparation, and still I am not anxious because of this. All I am feeling in regards to the trip is this deep pitted feeling of excitement!

I guess, now that many of the difficult and trying events in my life recently have begun to dry up and become less of immediate problems and more dull remembrances,  I am thinking much more clearly than I ever have. I am in the final stretch of course work for my last semester here at Grand Valley, I no longer am in an environment of constant self-consciousness, and upon assessment of demons I have battled with for years, I am surely on the road to recovery and new adventures.

While living in what some might consider a "dark time" in my life, I took every opportunity to be worried or uncertain about my motivations for this trip to Spain. "Am I using this as an escape?" "Am I running away from the 'real world'?" "What will I do when I get back and actually have to consider big life decisions?" These were steady and pressing concerns on my mind for many months. And now, somehow, those doubts and fears have been alleviated.  I am not even sure when or why that has happened, but in place of the more logical and rational worries, I am simply feeling excited and antsy.

Maybe this is simply a phase in my long-term struggles, but even if this high is temporary, I am okay with it. January 27th can not come soon enough.

I have had an epiphany. Everything that I do- all of the events, relationships, break-ups, fights, tears, laughs-  are motivated by love. I have so much love to share with the world. And that is exactly what I intend to do with it.

This is the reason

I am studying abroad because I have a ravenous, passionate, sick urge to see the world. I am traveling so I can see how people different from me live their lives. I am traveling because in order for me to feel at least semi- satisfied and fulfilled about my life as a whole, I need to see, feel, touch, taste, and experience something other than a small, single stoplight, all-white town. I need to talk to the people of a different country and ask their opinions, be challenged by culture shock and homesickness, so that way I can know and appreciate what I have and also what I desire more of in the world. I have this need to say ‘yes’ to very opportunity that presents itself, to not stop trying and pushing until I have more aspirations and hopes that is probably healthy for a normal person to have. I am unique in this way because of my passion to not settle for what is comfortable, and also to risk uncertainty in order get a small glimpse of what is really out there. I am traveling because I have to- because my hunger for more experiences is insatiable.

So, I'm going to Spain. In 74 days I will be boarding a plane and flying over the Atlantic Ocean to the most beautiful place in the world. I wanted to find a way to communicate with all my friends and family about my experiences while there and the struggles and eye-opening moments and the tears and the smiles. I want to share with everyone what it's like to be in Europe for the first time and what it's like in my shoes while there. This is just a bit of an introduction, so I'll try to update as I can.
I really wanted to start this blog before I left so I would be able to remember back to what my initial fears and worries were before leaving the U.S. as well as to serve as a way to compare myself now to who I will become!

So, as a bit of background, I'm going to be travelling to Sevilla, Spain. This is a growing city in the southern part of the country near Portugal. It is a glittering city that offers the best of both worlds; a growing and thriving metropolis, as well as the home of some of the oldest, biggest, and most interesting places from Spanish/European history.

It's funny, really how I decided on where I wanted to go abroad, so that's the story I'll tell:

   I was in Nicaragua on the Psychology study abroad trip this past summer. I don't want to make this about that trip, but being there changed my entire life. It took what I knew to be true and how I lived my life and turned it completely upside down. I look at the world differently, i see people in a new light. I have an appreciation for aspects of my life I had always taken for granted. Coming back from that experience, was like (I'm assuming) coming down from the highest high. It was my heroin. Being back in the U.S. after such a life-shaking experience left me frustrated and confused and I felt unable to connect with my life. Despite the negativity and the darkness I felt, the only light that was shed on me was the possibility of traveling again. I had this itch, this sick desire to see more. I wanted that high again, but I wanted it so badly.
   After the International Center at GVSU sent out it's regular post-travels, welcome back!, and trip surveys and questionnaires, I got this small glimmer that I might be able to get that opportunity I so craved and longed for. The day I got the email about grants available to curb the cost, I walked all the way to that side of campus and told the student advisor to open any travel book to any page and tell me how to go there. So that's literally what I did. I thumbed through the most recent Study Abroad program catalog and I found Spain.
   Once I found the country, I did a little more careful planning as far as budgeting and being realistic goes. When I discovered Sevilla, then I had to decide on one of the three universities. That's when I entered them on google maps and did a bit of a virtual tour. I knew I would just know when it felt right. And that's exactly why I finally chose la Universidad de Sevilla. It is this old (built in 1555) castle of a school right in the middle of this busy city. It fit me so well. I knew that's where I was going to go.

So there you have it. The type-A personality who just chose the first page that fell open. The person who made lists and who alphabetizes everything, just picking up and going. That's it. There was no big plan. There was no one I checked with or got permission from. I'm just doing it. I'm going to Spain.