It's been exactly one month of being a college graduate. My car made it through the flat lands of Kansas, over the Rocky Mountains, and to the San Juan Islands of the Northwest, and if I don't get an oil change soon, it won't make it much farther. After unpacking everything I owned out of the back of my Ford Focus, I sat in the passenger seat, cautious to put on this new skin. I would be deceiving you if I said that it has been an easy adjustment. As with any change, it's been a little uncomfortable. In this season, I'm finding what is okay to hold onto and learning to let go of the rest. The vacancy it has left has become an invitation to fill my soul with new insight and different breeds of courage. 

I've found myself mourning weird things like my old radio presets but finding new delight in natural phenomenons like Aloe Vera and tidal patterns. I've gained a new appreciation for friends and snail mail. Sorority squatting and throwing up hand signs in pictures is suddenly not acceptable (or maybe it never was). I've started to fall in love with things that are good for me, like yoga and kale. And I have discovered that it's possible to get through a book much quicker and actually enjoy the content when it's not a requirement. The question of "what are you studying?" has become, "what are you going to do with it?" and at this point it's obvious that the end of college does not mean the end to questions but the beginning of answering the ones that really matter. I have started to take ownership of my health. I might go back to ramen every once in a while but have you tried quinoa? So you see, post grad life has its perks, its small victories and its minor downfalls.

And here is possibly the real delight of this post grad life; that with everything behind me, there is nothing before me but what I decide to place there. I have the freedom to create my own curriculum. I get to choose the individuals that I learn from, and the environments that foster my own creativity. My classes no longer have names, but coordinates, and they aren't fixed. In three months I will leave the country and for the first time in my life, I DON'T HAVE TO COME BACK (but I will, mom, probably). I can go until my money runs out, and then come back and do it all over again if I choose. It might not be sustainable, and I will most definitely make a few (or a lot) of mistakes but I can't ignore the restlessness in my bones that tells me there is more to learn and beauty in wandering.

Now here's some of my views from my current wanderings:

May 19//Denver,CO