"Don't live the same year 75 times and call it a life." - Robin Sharma

2015 was a year of firsts.

First time calling a new zip code “home” for the greater portion of 12 months, first vacation to Europe, first time crossing the equator into the Southern Hemisphere, first summer living on my own in a foreign country. Looking back on the year behind me, I cannot help but smile at all of the chances I was gifted and all of the chances I took. If you'd asked me five years ago to predict 2015, never would I have accurately penned this 365-page chapter.

But that makes it all the more beautiful.

During the second semester of my freshman year, 2015 taught me that it is OK to feel at home and homesick all at once. In fact, it taught me that being able to leave your heart in two separate places is a gift. And so I did just that. Whether crooning “Baby It’s Cold Outside” while dashing through the first snowfall of the season or stargazing on Poe Field and discussing everything from the Big Bang to CBS’s "The Big Bang Theory," I left behind pieces of myself in the most unlikely of places with classmates from corners of the globe that, eight months prior, I couldn't even pinpoint on a map. It was all at once terrifying and exhilarating, but you know what? Perhaps the best things in life are just that.

Last January, I lived out one of my greatest life-long dreams by boarding a plane to Italy's Eternal City. In the seven days to follow, treading the cobblestoned grounds of history taught me so much more about the world around me than any textbook ever could. From the peak of the Duomo, I watched Tuscan roofs break through the dawn’s mist as the cradle of the Renaissance stretched itself awake. Later, in the center of Piazza Navona, I listened to a guitarist strumming the chords of “What a Wonderful World" and allowed the lyrics to linger in my ears, all the while thinking: it really, really is.

Come June, I found myself crossing the equator to study abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. On the 13th, I stood side-by-side with two of my best friends on a ranch in the Pampas and mentally traced the 5,304 miles back to my family with the Southern Hemisphere's brand new map of constellations. On the 26th, I watched the sun rise in Argentina only to find myself silhouetted against the Uruguayan sunset nine hours later, gazing out at a horizon that looked exactly like home. On the Fourth of July, I stood in the middle of Iguazu National Park, water and time flowing around me in one massive cascade, and fell more in love with nature than I had ever thought possible. Finally, after six weeks of getting lost in a city of three million and finding my way through the help of complete strangers, I learned that though language may vary by lines of latitude and longitude, love is universal.

At Princeton this fall, I found myself thrown into a land of firsts once more. This past month, I pressed pen to paper and wrote my first one-act play (and the best part about this first is that I have an inkling that it will be far from my last). On September 30, I found myself spellbound by Broadway’s "Wicked" as I sat in the audience fulfilling a childhood dream with fellow members of my residential college. Throughout the semester, I worked for a startup in London—a city that I have yet to visit—after having been united with complete strangers by a vision that defies geographical boundaries. During fall break, I travelled to Vermont with my family and disconnected from technology to reconnect with what matters most. Gazing out at the Green Mountain State's crimson canopies, I saw beauty untouched by the human hand, and was left breathless.

Other moments of 2015, however, left me breathless in a different way entirely. For all of its beauty, the past year was also incredibly trying at times—not only for me, but for the world as an entirety. In these moments, I learned the meaning of hope. I felt the power of love. I saw the essence of humanity.

And through this tumultuous chain of changes, one fact remained constant: I wrote. Every Sunday for the past 24 weeks, I have poised my fingers over the keyboard and surrendered to the magic that strings my deepest thoughts into sentences to be shared with the world. For once, these scrawls were not confined to crumpled train tickets or tea-stained margins, but rather unleashed into cyberspace. From my heart, to everyone. To you.

There are so many things I have yet to learn—to experience. I have been on this earth for almost two decades; in two decades more, I will be married with children and a career. And yet, there are still so many laughs to be had, sunsets to be watched, passports to be stamped, words to be scrawled, melodies to be sung, mistakes to be made, rejection letters to be received, dreams to be chased along the way.

Just as each day of 2015 has shaped me into the person I am right now, each day of the new year will contribute in some way to the formation of the woman who I will be twenty years from now. This is terrifying. This is exhilarating. The best things in life are.

I am so grateful for this year of firsts. The funny thing about firsts, though, is that sometimes—unbeknownst to you—they are also lasts. I hope with all of my heart that I will return to the people and places of 2015 time and time again. But if life renders this impossible, I will only cherish these memories all the more.

2015: a million thank you's would never come close to sufficing. In the words of A.A. Milne, “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”