I remember when I was a sophomore in high school and I officially made the decision to take a Gap Year after graduating. I’d just gotten into a heated discussion with my algebra teacher, she said something about me not respecting her authority, I said something about not caring; it’s all a blur now. Either way, I declared that I wouldn’t put myself through anymore of this. I needed a break. That was two years ago and I’m now a senior in high school. My dream school, Yale, has stopped taking admissions, so I’m out here on my own. In a couple of months, all of my friends will begin posting photos of their future schools’ emblems in faded ink on an overpriced t-shirt they bought when they toured the school. Soon, open houses filled with no name cousins and precious childhood memories strategically place throughout the house will take up calendars and demand attention from prom season to July.
I’m not doing any of that. I’m running away, not really from my home or anyone in particular. My room’s walls are filled with memories and magazine photos. outfit inspirations and photos of what I imagine my future husband will look like. It’s taken me years to achieve this ‘coming-of-age movie’ level of decorating. I can’t just run away from all of that. I’m not running away from home; I’m running away from boredom.
Ever since I was a kid I thought of travel as freedom. When I was younger, all I wanted was a plane ride to anywhere. You could argue that I enjoyed the plane ride more than the destination. I felt like I could go anywhere, that I was anywhere and for a few hours, the chain of gravity broke free and I could go anywhere without a pesky chain tugging me back home.
Then the trips slowed down a bit. Not because the ability lessened but because kids are in activities and activities are commitments and commitments take time. By the end of middle school, I didn’t have much time left.
What they don’t tell you when you’re growing up is that the further you get in school, the less you move around. As I grew older, I learned the less I move around, the more I feel trapped. The school system was working against me and by freshman year I was stir-crazy and seeking escape at any chance. Escapes to New York and Chicago saved me from my caged life in Minneapolis. The quick trips relieved stress and made me feel like the first step into an airport was the first time I could breathe in months.
By sophomore year, I was done sneaking in trips in between midterms, theater performances, and speech tournaments. I wanted to run around new cities for weeks on end without feeling obligated to go back home by a certain date. I want to introduce myself to skylines larger than my imagination and horizons carved into the side of the earth I’ve never seen before. I knew there was a world out there and now I wanted to be a part of it.
Fast forward two years and I’m now a senior, finally. Physics is killing me, AP Gov can go die somewhere and my saving grace is my gap year, which is the ultimate gift to myself for enduring the American public school system. When I tell people that I’m delaying school for my gap year I get flooded with questions.
How are you going to pay for it? Where are you going to stay? What if someone kidnaps you? What if you don’t speak the language? Where are you going to go?
For some of these questions, I have answers. If someone kidnaps me, start a hashtag. I’m going to stay in a combination of Airbnb’s and House Sitting Properties. I speak French, Spanish, and I’m learning Arabic. I’ll be fine. For some other questions, I have no answer. All I know is that I want to get on a plane and for a few hours, days, weeks, a year, or maybe even more forget that I have a home and become one with the world.
