My entire life I had written out the path I would walk on, selected what I would accomplish and the people that would enter my life. I voiced having a baby sibling prior to leaving home, dating someone that was not associated to my school, and becoming an intern in Germany. Surprisingly, all of those handwritten goals became a reality. I began to believe that if I continued to wish this fairytale life, everything would just gravitate around me. I was deserving of this mind-created world.

The world reversed my luck to grant me the unexpected. Each life goal I had stated to the world began to detach from my palms. I received loss after loss and rejection after rejection; my closest relationships were shattered to extinction, I was denied enrollment to graduate school abroad, and my experience in Germany took a different route. I carried my wounds on my shoulders, breaking my back with each day I stepped into. I lost my balance before departing from Seattle, unable to feel excitement before going abroad. I was terrified of the college students I would interact with my housing situation.

Embarking on an unknown and unexpected adventure abroad was painful due to issues regarding mental health, but it also brought an inexplicable joy in learning from students that came from various locations of the United States to experience the daily life of a foreign city.

I created friendships with those that possessed the courage of vulnerability in the process of sharing our stories, trying new foods, and inhaling historical art and trauma of our physical location.

My experience taught me to live in the present day. Enjoy the present as it already is. Understand that sometimes I have to miss a day of the internship because I was not allowed on the plane due to a cheap airline’s overbooking. Or, spending 40 minutes of your day in a taxi going around a city because the address you were given was incorrect.

If I look at (my) life as art, the unexpected positives and negatives will be simply beautiful.