“Wanderlust: A very strong and irresistible impulse or desire to travel the world"

  

The Eiffel Tower in Paris taken
on a sunset cruise along La Siene

I have always said I was born in the wrong era. As addicted as I am to my iPhone, and truly appreciate the conveniences of living in the modern world, I’ve always thought I belonged in a simpler time.

Growing up, all of my favorite movies were in medieval and colonial eras. The women wore beautiful floor length dresses and attended elaborate balls, and the men spoke in sexy British accents and constantly fought to protect their family and/or country's honor. 

As romantic as this all sounds, I doubt I would have enjoyed people getting beheaded in the town square on a weekly basis and being constantly suffocated by a corset.

Anyway - those details are beside the point.

    

Beach in Nervie, Italy 

After my trip to Europe this summer I got to thinking... maybe it wasn't the wrong era that I was born in, but the wrong location.

Now, before you get all up in arms and call me a want-to-be-expat, understand that I love America and can’t imagine being a citizen of any other country, no matter how cultured or beautiful it may be. This, however, does not change the fact that I fell in love when I went to Europe and a part of my heart stayed when I returned home. 

The views and landscapes are breathtaking.

The various cultures are rich in diversity and full of history.

The people are friendly and truly appreciate when you attempt to adapt to their culture and speak in their language.

The food really is as good as they say. In fact - I’ll go out on a limb and say it may even be better.

The cities are full of life and bursting at the seams with exciting new experiences and sites to discover.

Maybe the reason we are born in a specific country or city is so that once we do travel, we appreciate everything we see and do while abroad more than if we had lived there all of our lives ...and if this is the case, I am completely content. I doubt I could be more appreciative or thankful for my experience than I already am.

Regardless of the situation (even when lugging a 50 lb. suitcase over cobblestone streets through Brussels... hungover... in the rain) the happiness I felt upon landing in Europe did not fade in the two exhausting weeks that followed. Traveling with my favorite people through ten wildly different cities in four beautiful countries over 15 days resulted in the most amazing trip I have been on in my life... and I can't wait to go back. 

                            

                                   Flower market in
                                Paris, France

Gorgeous coastline along
Nervie, Italy

“There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget them,' 
my mother explained shortly before she left me. 
'If you can remember me, I will be with you always.”

― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

The sadness comes in waves. Usually the waves are fairly infrequent, but when they do hit, they pack more of a punch than a steady tide continually washing in and out of the shore would.  

Losing someone you have known your whole entire life is difficult to explain. Although those that survive the deceased should be happy their loved ones are now out of pain and in a better place, it is hard not to feel like a small piece of you was buried along with them.

For me, it’s the small things that remind me of my grandparents’ absence in my life…

The Sunday afternoon phone calls I received every single week that no longer come.

My new habit of lighting a candle every weekend at Mass.

The fact that after losing my Grandfather I now light two – the new addition always right next to the one I've been lighting for my Grandmother for the past year.

Every time I put on and take off the golden locket that frequently hangs around my neck.

Whenever I open the locket and see parts of love notes my grandfather wrote to my grandmother while they were dating.

Whenever I pick my nails or bite my lip because a little voice in my head reminds me that both are “terrible and unattractive habits.”

Their messages still sit in my voicemail box and my Pop’s cell phone is still on my speed dial list (both of which you would find terribly impressive if you knew my grandparents and their hesitance toward modern technology).  

Although every time one of these things happen I am reminded of the loss my family has experienced, I am also reminded that these all stem from memories I had the chance to experience with them, and that is something I am thankful for.

Even though it was hard to accept that we would be losing my Pop just one year after my Grandma, we knew deep down that every day he spent with us was one more day he was away from her – and if you knew them, that was no small sacrifice.

How are you supposed to know what to say to someone you love when you know for a fact it is the last time you will ever speak to them?

I didn't. None of us did.

So instead of saying all of the thoughts that were swirling around in my head and making my chest tight with grief, I told him I loved him. And then I hummed the lullaby my grandmother use to sing to all of us grandchildren when we were younger.

Waiting with the rest of my family after saying our final goodbyes was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. It was almost like the minute we walked out of his room and stepped out into the hallway we were accepting the fact that my grandfather was going to die.

After we all assembled in different positions around the big double doors leading to the ICU, the tears began to fall. But then shortly after, our tears were replaced with laughter.

“You know what?” one of us said, “I bet Poppie has it coming to him when he gets to heaven’s gates. You know Grandma is probably standing there next to Peter, hands on her hips, asking him why he made her wait so damn long!”

It was in that moment – seated on the cold, white linoleum tile floor of the hospital – that the healing began. Half laughing and half crying, surrounded by my loved ones, I realized I’d gladly accept that a small part of me would be gone forever in exchange for the ability to carry their memory with me wherever I go.

 “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”
- Flannery O’Connor

For the past couple of months, this blog has been one of the things that get me through the tough days. I am well aware that it is scarcely read (even though the posts are awesome), but that’s ok – I do it for me. Of course I would love it if I received dozens of gushing comments or thousands of page views, but I would also like to be a billionaire. Reality must set in at some point, but hey, a girl can dream cant she?

Usually when I sit down to write I can tell what the mood of my post will be depending on the music I play. When things were hard for me last year, John Mayer was my immediate go-to artist and it seemed as if his melancholy attitude and bad hair days manifested themselves in my posts. 

Lately, the playlists I put on have been substantially more cheery and upbeat. I think it reflects the fact that I am finally comfortable with writing what is really on my mind. Looking back, the first handful of posts I made spanned over two years and were terribly boring. They talked about what I did and who I saw and how happy I was, etc. etc. 

After I started reading other people’s blogs I realized I didn’t like posts that were all sunshine and rainbows. It was annoying and I usually never got to the bottom of the page. At that point it dawned on me that the people reading my blog probably didn’t like my posts either (it's ok, you are forgiven).

The posts I enjoy reading the most are those that the author doesn’t sensor him or herself. Those that you can tell were written in raw emotion, not deep in thought. I think that we truly enjoy reading stories when we connect with what the character is saying or doing on a personal level. Unfortunately, this rarely happens when authors try their hardest to not say anything too revealing about their personal lives.

For me, the best part about writing has been overcoming feeling embarrassed about sharing my feelings, successes or failures. Sure – I will probably never be able to hold public office, but they have awful hours anyway. 

Hitting the publish button on a post that literally broke my heart every time I read it was extremely difficult. Revealing that I have pretty much failed at every age-appropriate milestone I set for myself and am nowhere near being in a committed relationship was embarrassing. But after the initial shock of willingly sharing my stories with God knows who wore off, it’s actually been quite refreshing.

Gudzak and Mayer call it quits!

So with that being said, I must now offer my apologies to dear Mr. Mayer: John, you are a wonderful singer and I never intended to join ranks with Taylor Swift in publicly denouncing my affection for you – but I’ve moved on to bigger and happier playlists. It's not you, it’s me.

“The fact is. Sometimes it's hard to walk in a single woman's shoes. That's why we need really special ones now and then - to make the walk a little more fun.”
- Carrie Bradshaw

My feelings towards Valentine’s Day this year are much like my feelings towards Kwanza or Rosh Hashanah: While I don't personally observe either, I understand that Valentine’s Day is special to others and gives them an opportunity to celebrate their marriage, relationship, flavor of the week, etc. 

Although I feel like I should be taking up arms with my fellow single friends against celebrating a day that’s true meaning came from the beheading of Christian martyrs, I am oddly neutral on my feelings for it – regardless of my relationship status. I’ve celebrated Valentine’s Day in a relationship for a majority of my dating-age-appropriate life and have never had a reason to dislike it. Why should I start now just because I don’t have someone to celebrate it with?

Remember the Sex and the City episode that Carrie decided single people deserve to be celebrated just as much as married couples and registered herself at Manolo Blahnik*? Although I hope to one day marry someone other than myself, I do appreciate her view on celebrating and appreciating who you are, whether you have a significant other or not.

Skinny vanilla latte? Way better than roses.

I unfortunately cannot afford to splurge on $400 shoes at this point in my life, but in the spirit of Carrie I did treat myself to a nice latte this morning from Starbucks. Just because. Well, also because I really needed caffeine… but that is beside the point. 

Every now and then we deserve to be treated to something special. If there isn’t someone in your life right now to do that for you, there is no need to wait for them to come around. Do it yourself :)


*For guy readers... this is a really fancy shoe store. You're welcome.

“You either like me or you don’t. It took me twenty-something years to learn how to love myself, I don’t have that kind of time to convince someone else.”

It is officially the fourth week in January and I keep doing double takes at my calendar in disbelief at how quickly this month has flown by. It seems like I usually have a while after the holidays die down before preparing my liver for my birthday, but February is right around the corner… and do you know what else is hiding in that same corner? Twenty-five.

That’s right – next week I will officially be 25 years old. A quarter of a century. I will be old enough to rent a car without extra auto insurance… annnd sadly enough that is the only benefit I could find from my Google search. Sorry.

Although I don’t have a fun list of ‘benefits of turning 25’ for you to read, I will share this entertaining list of Google suggestions that auto filled when I typed in '25 years old’: 

- "25 years old and lost"
- "25 years old and living at home"
- "25 years old and never been kissed"
- "25 years old and never had a job"

Thankfully my current life situation doesn't call for me to further investigate any of the above options, but I truly hope that whoever was searching for these things was not in all of those predicaments simultaneously.

It’s pretty funny thinking back to my teenage self and seeing how different my reality is than what I expected it would be by now. Growing up I think all of us at one point or another (girls at least - don’t lie) planned out a timeline of momentous life events and the ideal age each of those things would occur. Please see below to have a good laugh at my expense:

Expected/Planned Life	Reality
Engaged by 24	I don’t have a boyfriend, nevertheless a fiancé
Married by 25	Unless I have any takers for Vegas in a week, this isn’t happening
Kids by 27	If you count my dog as a child then yes. If not, then consider me 0 for 3 because the pitter-patter of little feet is the last thing on my mind.

According to the above list, I have pretty much failed at every milestone the idiot teenage version of myself set years and years ago. Luckily, I don't look at it that way. I am truly content (and daresay, happy) with where I am at in life and with what I have accomplished in my meager 24 years.

I think the most important thing I’ve learned in my post-college life is that we all need to taper our expectations sometimes. This doesn’t mean to give up on your goals or throw out the “if you dream it, you can do it” mentality. It means we should accept that sometimes it’s best to not receive or achieve the things we think we want in life (queue inspiring music and Garth Brooks’ ‘Unanswered Prayers’).

Looking at my life-timeline chart, I realized all of my plans were based off of some mystery person who may or may not be my future husband and that each of them had an expiration date. The two things my plans had in common turned out to be their biggest flaws.

I understand now that what we want to achieve in life should not be based on any individual but ourselves. More importantly, finding happiness should not have a time-frame nor should we limit ourselves to achieving that happiness by a certain age.

So here’s to 25: Next week I will officially be out of my early twenties, and as scary as that seems right now, I’m ready for what my non-planned future has in store for me.

xo

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” 

- George R.R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons

Remember those “choose your own adventure books” from when you were a little kid? The ones that let you determine if Mary should go down the scary dark tunnel that may potentially lead to her death, or if she should turn back and wait for her friends? (To continue down the tunnel, turn to page 46)

I’m sure this doesn’t come as a surprise, but I loved them. My library hours in elementary school usually comprised of me reading every possible outcome in one of those books, then choosing the best one and pretending like it was my first pick all along… but hey that’s just me.

Seeing that I’m back on my book kick, I’ve decided that a post dedicated to some good reads is long overdue. Why, you may ask, would I tell you about the “choose your adventure” books? Surely I’m not planning on suggesting for you to read them? Of course not – you amateurs probably wouldn’t be able to guide Mary to safety anyway… 

But seeing that I’m in a nostalgic mood, I’m going to fashion this post after one of those books. Fear not loyal readers – there will be no dark scary tunnels, and none of the outcomes lead to poor Mary’s demise. Excited yet? Because I am. Follow along this blog post to discover the best books for you to read in 2013!

Journey to the Center of the Library
 by Ashley E. Gudzak

It was a dreary afternoon in Pleasantville and the skies were becoming darker and more ominous with each passing minute. Mary was at the library finishing up her essay when thunder shook the walls and a flash of lightning illuminated the sky outside. Realizing that she wouldn’t be leaving any time soon despite the fact that her project was almost done, Mary gave in and decided she might as well find a book to read.

There was just one problem: Mary was not a big reader and had no clue where to begin. The aisles at the library had so many choices and she wasn’t sure which one to venture down first.

After wandering around for a time, Mary decided to ask the librarian for assistance. “Excuse me, I’m looking for a book to read but don’t know where I should start. Can you help me?” 

The librarian smiled, “Of course, young lady. First, we’ll need to figure out which genre is the best fit for you. What are your favorite kinds of stories?”

To help the librarian point Mary (i.e.: you) in the right direction, pick an answer to her question below:

1.      “I love stories about hopelessly romantic men and the stupid women they date that do not deserve their love like I do. I swear, one day I will find my own Christian Grey. Excuse me? No, I have no idea why I am still single… why do you ask?” (scroll down to Romance)

2.      “I love stories about magic and supernatural worlds. Spells and made-up languages? Bring it on! Huh? No, I haven’t received my Hogwarts letter yet… Oh, I’m sure the owl just got stuck in the storm or something.”  (scroll to Fantasy/Sci-Fi)

3.      “I enjoy reading about the past and learning how people in other countries, cultures or time periods lived. Boring, you say? No way! I love reading books with accented writing and names I can’t pronounce. Namaste.” (scroll down to Cultural/Historical)

4.      “I’d like to read about survival techniques or potential fates for the world after the coming apocalypse. Oh, it is going to happen… just a matter of time now. Better be prepared and get your vaccinations up to date. Do you guys sell bows and arrows?” (scroll to Future/Dystopia)

5.     “I like stories about heroes and adventure! No sappy romance for me. A little scary or disturbing? No problem! I have a dream catcher above my bed.” (scroll down to Thriller/Mystery)

(Author’s note: Books with asterisks are my top choices for each genre!)

Romance

1.      Slammed by Colleen Hoover* (See previous blog post)

2.      Point of Retreat by Colleen Hoover (Slammed #2)

3.      Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire*

4.      The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger*

5.      Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

6.      Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin

7.      Something Blue by Emily Giffin

8.      Reason to Breathe by Rebecca Donovan

9.      Barely Breathing by Rebecca Donovan

Fantasy/Sci-Fi

1.      Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling*

2.      Game of Thrones Series by George R.R. Martin*

3.      The Rook by Daniel O’Malley*

4.      Everneath by Brodi Ashton*

5.      Lorien Legacies Series by Pittacus Lore

6.      The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

7.      Bloodlines Series by Richelle Mead

Cultural/Historical

1.      Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors*

2.      The Help by Kathryn Stockett

3.      The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

Future/Dystopia

1.      Partials by Dan Wells*

2.      Divergent by Veronica Roth*

3.      Insurgent by Veronica Roth (Divergent #2)

4.      Delirium by Lauren Oliver

5.      Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

6.      Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins*

7.      Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (HG #2)

8.      Mocking Jay by Suzanne Collins (HG #3)

9.      The Selection by Kiera Cass

10.   The Maze Runner by James Dashner

11.   The Scorch Trials  by James Dashner (Maze Runner #2)

12.   The Death Cure  by James Dashner (Maze Runner #3)

13.   Uglies by Scott Westerfield

14.   Pretties by Scott Westerfield (Uglies #2)

15.   Specials by Scott Westerfield (Uglies #3)

16.   Matched by Ally Condie

17.   Crossed by Ally Condie (Matched #2)

18.   Reached by Ally Condie (Matched #3)

Thriller/Mystery

1.      The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown*

2.      Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (Robert Langdon #2)

3.      The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (Robert Langdon #3)*

4.      The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larrsson

5.      The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larrsson (Girl Who #2)

6.      The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larrsson (Girl Who #3)

7.      We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver