who am i ?

Fourth of July at 16 in North Dakota

My introductory “fun fact” has always and most likely will always be that I have been to all 50 states. And when I say all 50 I mean I have been blessed enough to see not only the “cool” states like Hawaii and Alaska but also the states, no offense to anyone who may be from there, which are stereotypically “boring” such as Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, pretty much every state with more farm animals than people. You learn a lot of things when traveling around the country, like “Rocky Mountain Oysters” have one hundred percent more bull testicle than shellfish, that no matter how young you are, an angry Red Sox fan will cuss you out at Fenway Park, that green chilis make everything taste better even outside of New Mexico and most importantly that everywhere and everyone is so different and so unbelievably beautiful in their own way. Obviously I could have learned that through easier ways than 28 hour road trips and crappy motels, but a good adventure never hurt anyone. Traveling to all 50 states not only gave me a perspective on life itself but on what I wanted my life to be and who I wanted to be.

I am originally from Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore to be more specific. I grew up lucky with a great family, two supportive parents and two beautiful younger sisters. I was always surrounded by my family, my grandparents lived in the neighborhood down the road, my cousins a few states over. I loved and still do love swimming, writing, politics, music, and I had a great childhood. Even though everything I grew up around and everyone I grew with was amazing. My parents were determined that by the time their eldest daughter (me) was eighteen that everyone in my family would have seen every state. We started on the East Coast hitting all the traditionally “roadtrippable” locations, like Virginia, Delaware, New York, South Carolina, you get the idea, the easy ones. But as the mileage got higher the travel got more difficult, by the time we were heading Midwest the drives were getting up to twelve to twenty hours. I hated it. I complained every single time my parents brought up the idea of another roadtrip to another state. I specifically remember crying in a North Dakota bathroom when I was sixteen because I couldn’t get drunk with the boy I liked on Fourth of July, and when I found out I was spending my valuable spring break in Missouri I had a full breakdown. I have good memories everywhere I went, even North Dakota and Missouri, in North Dakota we saw fireworks at a local highschool which was something they never did in my town, and in Missouri I went to my first wax museum. No matter where I went, no matter how miserable I was by the idea of going there and being there, it was amazing, and taught me that there is something good in everything at least if you look hard enough. That’s a really difficult lesson to learn, and it took me even longer to see that in myself and in my potential future and I am forever grateful for every experience I had.

Traveling so much and learning all I did made me know that I most definitely did not want to go to college in my state, I knew that I needed to go somewhere completely different, where I didn’t know anybody. So I started looking solely out of state, which is how I ended up here. My love for seeing everywhere I could, made me decide to double major in Global Diplomacy, Global being in the name, as well as Strategic Communications, because there is nothing better than being able to communicate with everyone, everywhere. I am also minoring in Spanish, because it is truly amazing that you can go nearly anywhere and at least someone will be able to speak Spanish or English.

Traveling and experiencing crappy places and beautiful places and in hindsight looking back and loving it all, made me who I am today and is going to make me who I want to be. Seeing all 50 states and putting all those miles in when I was younger made me realize what I want to do, and is one of the reasons I am in this class right now.