These are the best years of your life. They say to do everything, try everything, see everything. Do it while you’re young, they say. While these can hold true, it’s a sort of a message that becomes monotonous. Trying to maintain a positive mindset to feel grateful and agree with this sentiment is difficult, and this message may need to be taken with a grain of salt. When do the best years of life begin? The feeling we can never truly know until it’s already gone – but I know what some of the best moments in mine will have been–the past two months.
Being a college student in your 20s might be some of the hardest years of your life. Not on the surface of course, but mentally exhausting. To have constant expectations and competition set for yourself, wondering if you are doing everything right to prepare for your real life after college, juggled with the constant desire to free yourself from those constraints by going out at night and trying to forget the realities of the new week starting again. But the opportunity to get out of that cyclical lifestyle mentally and physically has changed the way I look at my life in my 20s.
Being able to uproot my day-to-day reality and immerse myself in what felt like a whole new world made me see that travel and the experience of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable have changed me more in the past two months than anything in the past two years. Seeing the world in a new way of life, moving to Florence, Italy where the pick-up trucks are traded for mopeds, and the endless farm fields are replaced by intricately sculpted and everflowing stone. These small differences felt like a world of huge shifts adjusted to a new place to call home. Feeling like an outsider, because you find out that it’s beyond taboo to get a cappuccino after noon, and being in a rush is much less appreciated than having nowhere to be.
Being able to swallow the surrealness of being in an environment so visually contrasting but finding that humans are more similar than different, and within two weeks you’ve made friends with the barista at the coffee shop two steps from your apartment. All the while adjusting to this, making sure you make the most of the most valuable, expensive piece of your lifetime. By booking and ensuring you’re going to all the places you can. In just two short months, I was able to see Italy in many forms – Pisa, Siena, Milano and Firenze.
Getting a chance to feel at home again, was taking a weekend trip to Ireland. It is the most breathtaking place. Feeling like you’re breathing the freshest air, standing on cliffs that look over the bluest water, sheep grazing in the pastures, jolly men and women that serve you your pint of Guinness and tell you that they have gone to America to see Elvis Presley’s house. These are all things I was able to experience in January. Hearing about people’s trek to see the things they love, no matter where you go, and no matter the age, the gift of human connection is the biggest thing I have been blessed with appreciating in these two short months.
Trying to grasp the surrealness, and gratefulness of thinking that I might indeed be living “the best years of my life” but finding that they might just be getting started, and enjoying the ride. Until next time, ciao!
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Hi! I’m Annie Gleydura, A Magazine’s editor-in-chief. My staff and I are committed to bringing you the most important and entertaining news from the realms of fashion, beauty and culture. We are full-time students and hard-working journalists. While we get support from the student media fee and earned revenue such as advertising, both of those continue to decline. Your generous gift of any amount will help enhance our student experience as we grow into working professionals. Please go here to donate to A Magazine.
