Nothing I’ve posted has come close to being as overwhelmingly viral as 22 Things Your Freshman Year of College Teaches You, and honestly, I’m a little disappointed in myself for continuously trying to match that. I thought posting short, relatable lists was the answer to unending blog success, but it’s not. I tried way too hard to take that idea and run with it.

So what is the trick to a successful blog then? I don’t know. But sitting here, up in the air on a plane I might add, I’ve realized that my blog is, in fact, quite successful because it saved my life. It has opened me back up, allowed all of my pent up emotions to flow out, and it’s finally beginning to put me back together again.

If you’ve read my K-Love’s 30 Day Challenge posts, then you have an idea of the place I was in before I started my blog. I dwelled in that place for way too long and I let it consume me. Any time I would write, the words went down on the page as fragmented, desperate attempts at figuring out what I loved, who I loved and what it all meant. It wasn’t free and easy. It wasn’t really me.

Real me was somewhere deep inside myself aching and hurting but putting on a brave face so that no one asked questions. I think, however, that I put on that brave face begging someone to ask me if I really had it all figured out.

I didn’t and I don’t and now I know that honesty is beautiful. I honestly have nothing figured out, and I like it that way. I like spontaneity and adventure, and I think I may even enjoy change most of the time.

I originally intended for this post to be about why I love writing, reading and traveling, and I don’t really know how to tie that in now, but here I am up in the air with no abilities to post and plenty of time to continue crafting my words.

Words are a craft, and language is so beautiful. Without communication who are we? What are we? Is there even meaning?

I’m on a plane, something I’m accustomed to and comfortable with for the first time in my life, and when I land I’ll be in a place that has captured but also broken my heart, and nonetheless enchanted me.

Ever since I started traveling, I made a few promises that I’d stop eventually, and sometimes I even wanted to, but there’s just something about it. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop.

My favorite part about traveling is road trips, and maybe I think that because I’m in control of the where and when. I like to be in control. But there’s also something about flying, looking down on the rest of the world (something I literally just did as I typed that so I think that just made everything that much cooler). It really puts into perspective that the world is big and small all at once.

To write and read and travel the rest of my life… Gosh, that’s the dream. And why not? At least for now, at least for a while. Of course I believe in relationships and love and vows, but right now, I don’t have anything pressing like that. My family will always be my family and I will always come home, and my friends are moving just as much as I am, and if they’re not, they’re my reason for traveling. But as far as my life right now, it’s my own. I’m not ready to commit my life to anyone else and settle. I’m in love with a lot of things but not one person or one place.

We’re always on a journey, and I’m blessed to be traveling on mine. I know there was previously a time and there will come a time again when my journey will experience a period of standing still, and I’ll be ready for that when it comes, but not now.

I love seeing God in the places I visit and the people I meet. It makes me feel strong and thankful. It’s not hard to see God if you just look. And even more so, I love sharing those experiences I have. I suppose that’s why I write; that’s why I do this.

And I think reading takes you as close as you can to being inside someone else’s mind. So maybe books are my favorite mode of transportation. What better destination than a glimpse at what makes someone else tick?

What does it mean to be reading, writing and traveling all at once, like I am now? Pure bliss, if you ask me. That’s why I want to be an author.

Lately I’ve been versing myself in the unique, sophisticated style of The New Yorker, and today, just now on this plane, I read a piece that really spoke to me: “Stepping Out” by David Sedaris. Sedaris was promoting Fitbit, an upgraded pedometer, but his piece wasn’t just that, if only you took the time to read and understand the little slices of life he shared.

I wonder if Sedaris had not written “Stepping Out”, would he have even understood just how beautiful his life was? I know that when I write, I’m able to see beauty in even the most hideous or monotonous slices of my own life.

I’m not sure what’s next for me. This week I have the opportunity of narrating a promotion video for Walsh Paper Distribution, which in my opinion is something interesting to add not only to my resume but also to my bank of life experiences. Over the weekend, I was welcomed and loved by my sisters in the Theta Lambda chapter of Alpha Phi, and next week I get to travel to a state I’ve never visited before.

I guess the bottom line of this whole piece is that for the first time in a long time or maybe even ever, I’m so excited to be living the life I have. I don’t want anything but for my life to be what it is each and every day and take it all with optimism and grace.

Like flying, I’ve also become accustomed to sleeping in so many different beds, and a few have actually earned a meaning kind of like “home” for whatever the familiar, comfortable reason may be. Although my California bed breeds feelings of pain and nostalgia, a time when my dreams were so different than they are now, I’m going to bed content with the past, excited for the future and humbled by the present.

Sometimes it takes the highest highs and the lowest lows to see that life is beautiful.