By Mia Brounstein
Editor-in-Chief
Where am I going?
I don’t mean in a metaphysical or theological sense; I’m talking literally. The number of days between myself and graduation are growing slimmer and slimmer, and I don’t yet know what the days after May hold for me.
I’ve been applying for jobs, of course, and I have a fairly strong idea of what I want to do. What I don’t know, though, is where I want to be.
It would be simplest (and perhaps wisest) to find a place back home in Minnesota or near Steubenville: somewhere cheap and familiar, an easy glide into the adult world. Nine out of 10 times, when I imagine my future, it’s clear that that’s where I’ll be.
But something lingers in my chest, a leftover, perhaps, from ancestors braver and tougher than I. A quiet voice reminds me that the world is very wide and I am young, and I could go anywhere.
Should I move to Barcelona and learn Spanish or get a tiny apartment in Seattle and become a barista? Should I be a foreign correspondent journalist in Morrocco or a fashion designer in Melbourne?
At these times, I have to pull myself together and remind myself of how hard my semester abroad was and how much I longed for the comfortable familiarity of home. That argument, though, is easily refuted by the spirit of my high school self, who would have sold a kidney simply for the opportunity to explore, much less live in, a new city.
But as time has gone on, I have grown, more and more, to experience the mysterious power that places have to change me. I experienced this most acutely when I was studying abroad.
When I think back to the places I traveled to, what I remember best is the feeling of the city, the indescribable impression that it made on me, the fingerprints it left.
Even if you haven’t studied abroad, the life of a college student almost always includes this surreal experience of place. Both Minnesota and Franciscan are, in their own way, a home to me; however, three years of college have not diminished the whiplash-like feeling that I get from moving between the two.
At this point, I’ve more or less mastered the practical elements of moving my belongings and my self fifteen hours across the country twice a year. What’s more difficult is reconciling the way I change when I am in one place as opposed to the other: a change not only in physical environment but also in feeling.
It’s my philosophy that human beings tend to experience places at two different levels, with the first being physical and literal; place is the reality of your environment, the way somewhere looks, sounds and smells.
The other level is much more internal; it’s the way a place can sink into your skin, the memories and feelings it plants in you. It’s the difference between places that feel warm and secure and homey and places that feel new and wild and wander-y.
So, when I consider where I want to go after graduation, I’m not only thinking of a physical environment. The place I go will become a part of me, and I must choose between the few places that feel like home to me and the countless places that are strange and distant.
But, as it turns out, nearly every place in the world feels like home to someone (or to a lot of someones), so why not me?
My bank account might have something to say about the matter, but for now, I’ll dream of writing articles for a small-town newspaper in rural Ireland. Wish me luck!