Gap Year Journey

Dropping out of a well-accredited school to travel halfway across the country jobless was never a part of the plan. I believed in having structure. I believed that it was important to live up to the expectations of an average nineteen year old. Stay in school, make some money, and keep good company around. Sounds simple enough right? It’s not easy to have a good time. At least for me, it’s an everyday battle between my own thoughts and the actions of everyone around me. I can never enjoy the “now”. I’ve always ended up resenting myself for running away from my own problems. I believed that the next solution was always in another location.

I partially blame this on my upbringing as an army brat (child of a military family). However, it mostly has to do with my starry-eyed imagination.  You have to understand that my inability to rely on a place for comfort cannot exist because I don’t have one to call my own home. Both of my parents were born and raised in a quaint town in Western Colorado. They quickly fled as soon as they barely passed high school together. They had the quintessential upbringing filled with teen angst and shortsighted decision making. As desperately as they pushed to get out of that vortex, they can now as adults appreciate where they come from and love it for what it is. Since having me, their lifestyle took a drastic turn into a nomadic direction. We’ve gotten to live in Europe a majority of my life. I attended four different high schools in four years. I sometimes have friends scattered across the globe. I’m extremely privileged to have parents that cared enough about me to make sure I wouldn’t have lived in an environment that is soul crushing. They kept my morals in check (shout out to catholic guilt) and never tried to mold me into someone I’m not. I love them with all my heart and I’m really not allowed to complain. Still, plane tickets and empty labels will never satisfy the one aspect of my life that makes me feel incomplete. That is having a place to call my own.

The solarium of my mother’s childhood home.

There are a few things in this world that are imperative to me that I must find before I die. That is: pursuing a fulfilling career, love, and finding a place that feels like it’s been waiting for me all my life. These three things are what keep me up at night. Over-questioning my ability to commit, wondering if I’m worth it, and effortlessly belonging. Throughout all the moves, I never once felt accepted in the locations we were assigned to. I found people along the way that gave me clues as to what I was aspiring for, but personally never felt it. If I’m given the option to be with others or by myself, I will always choose the latter. Being alone is my comfort zone. I don’t enjoy being around a crowd of people that I have to tame my personality traits for. I’ve felt like a social experiment for peers to dissect into since I was in middle school. What is she doing wrong? Why does she think anyone will tolerate her? Picking me apart until I had to admit my wrongdoings and beg my parents to find a different job in another country (seriously). In the sixth grade I went to an overpriced private school. All of the girls purposely hemmed their skirts to Halloween costume length and wore preppy tan Sperrys. It wasn’t the dress code, but the social dress code sort of speak. I remember walking in with my plaid skirt at nun approval length and a pair of Mary Janes thinking, “It’ll be okay, they’ll know who I am”. I ended up having to change my number due to cyberbullying and lasted six months there. These types of incidents lasted all the way up to twelfth grade. But, this is where I distinctly remember accepting for the first time I wasn’t wanted. I was just a kid.

I didn’t trust people, but I wanted to be accepted by them so desperately. For a long time I resented myself for not adapting to expected social standards. I would have given anything to belong to the basics and play along with their games. To have your friends feel like family and where you live identify as home. There was nothing I wanted more. I accept that I do things my own way and at a different pace. However, now I don’t have to pretend that it makes me undesirable.

During my last semester in New York I was completely numb. I applied to a school I didn’t believe in and felt that I needed to change everything about my appearance. I thought I had to start acting like everyone else to get over myself. The summer coming home before transferring was without a doubt one of the darkest times of my life. I stayed in my bed for two months wondering if I would ever be enough for someone or somewhere. I didn’t believe in myself. I didn’t want to feel happy. I wanted to hate my life and I didn’t want anyone to help me get better. I would cry until six in the morning watching everyone drive to their day job and sleep all day until it was pitch black outside again. My thoughts had become alarming and I was starting to frighten myself. I was too downhearted to ever consider going back to school, let alone somewhere new. At four in the morning while sitting in a bathtub, I made the irrational decision to disenroll from school and take a gap year.

A week later I got my act together and packed up everything that had sentimental value to me. I was on the road with no idea what I was actually doing. Now, this is where I want to say I let my hair fly in the wind with the top down and found the love of my life in a Chili’s parking lot. But that’s not my reality. The reality of driving halfway across the country is being lost in an unlively state at two in the morning wondering if you’re going to make it. But life doesn’t have to hate you that much. You’ll end up making it to your relatives house in the Midwest that you’re crashing at until you save up enough money to keep traveling. For now, I get to go to sleep somewhere that doesn’t make me resent my parents for having me. But I know it’s not forever, and that it’s definitely not home.

Taking time off from school is a mixture of pleasure and pain. I didn’t shave my legs for three weeks because I have no one to impress here. But I don’t have a special someone to tell me I’m overthinking again. I have time to read all the books I used as decor in my room now, but dropped my phone in the toilet. I put pink streaks in my hair because I can do whatever I want. But I also had to drive through a thunderstorm with a flat tire. I feel comfortable getting to have a lot of alone time. Yet, I continue to get rejected by baristas I can’t stop staring at while ordering my coffee. I purchased tickets to destinations I’ve always fantasized about visiting. Then I got fired from my job the day after I spent all my money on them.

I don’t know when life stops getting hard. I don’t know if it ever does. But one thing I have learned from my short time of not belonging to a system is that there is no rush. As much as the public is trying to convince you otherwise, you are not missing out on anything. Weekend nights are the worst. My thoughts are consumed with the idea that I made a careless decision or I’m wasting my youth away. But I had to do this for myself. I had to show that I was okay. I had to prove that my life wasn’t as bad as it seemed. It’s really up to you if you want to make it better.

For now I don’t know what the future holds. All I know is that my favorite color is black and blue like a bruise. I’m really into the history of women that revolutionized the rock industry. I like collecting pieces of poetry that don’t make me cringe. I can’t tell you how temporary these personality traits are, but the point is I don’t deny them. I don’t hate who I am or what I’m becoming. As twisted as my thoughts might come across, I accept them. That’s a huge deal, to love yourself. I hope everyone is able to identify their true thoughts and not feel so compelled to feel like everyone else. Even the girls that wore tan Sperrys. Because after all, if I’m not able to call a place home right now I’ll make one for myself. This gap year was when I find home in myself first and that’s a destination I could have never predicted. ☆