Four years ago, I never would have thought I would be where I am right now.

In the Spring of 2015, I was sitting with my family on a bus to Hollywood Studios when I got the email saying I’d been accepted to the University of Delaware for the Spring 2016 semester. For the rest of our trip, I couldn’t stop thinking about what type of bedding I wanted and I that had to get a mattress topper because college mattresses are gross and uncomfortable. By the week end, I had already picked out the select 100 pictures that would grace the cement walls that would, unbeknownst to me, haunt me for years to come. Bad things happened there; I had to escape.

I did a stint at a Jewish day camp. I had to see my ex-boyfriend every day. It wasn’t fun; I was emotionally and physically wrecked by the time August rolled around. One of the good things that did come out of this summer, however, was my decision to transfer to Binghamton. This was the change I desperately needed. 

That October, I applied to study abroad in London the following semester. I went to London the following spring. I went to the Louvre, walked around in the attic where Anne Frank was once hidden, and sat on Arthur’s Seat after a night of Scottish line dancing. I would not be the same person I am today without London. With a kiss on each cheek and a final sip of a cuppa, I say thank you. 

Summer 2018. I had applied to hundreds of internships and nothing had come of the countless hours I spent writing so many cover letters and editing my resumé. As a last-ditch effort, I applied to a summer program at New York University. I got in and attended the six-week intensive. I realized that maybe I actually do have a chance of making it- whatever that means. 

So, here we are. It’s 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, October 10, 2018. Carole King is quietly playing on my turntable– her name is Vic– and I’m sitting at my desk. To my left, I have Zadie Smith’s On Beauty stacked on top of my deeply loved and very much tattered copy of The Great Gatsby. My headphones lie in a tangled mess next to my empty coffee mug, and I’m thinking about the stairs I don’t really want to walk down to fill up my water bottle that I have to drink from with a straw because if I didn’t, water goes everywhere and then I’d have to walk down the stairs again to get paper towels. I have a map of central London up on my wall to the right, and my metro card from this summer next to a postcard of Hillary Clinton’s face to the left. Not yet folded, clean laundry adorns my unmade-pillow-fort-of-a bed. My room may be a mess, I may [or may not] also be a mess but, I am so very happy. It’s funny the way life works itself out, huh?

Four years ago, I never would have thought I would be where I am right now. 

@ferrisbueller: you get me, right?