I spent my summer living on the road, traveling from place to place, and having adventures that created the best memories. But, it wasn't all smooth and fun roads; there were tough times, and a lot of learning moments. It was an epic summer though, and one that I am grateful for. There were a few lessons though that stuck out a little extra, and here they are...

Messes happen; move on. Food spills, clothes stay dirty, and no matter how hard you try, trash will pile up in the car. There is no time to pull over and get it all clean, nor would that be possible. You just have to move on until you’ve made it your next destination, then you take the time to clean up before you start the next leg of your trip. When I got in my car that first day, I swore everything would be clean and smooth. The joke was on me; it turned in to one of the messiest adventures I have ever been on, but hey, I learned how to clean up the messes I made, and move on to create the next one.

The relationships that matter will find a way. I left home in the spring, and didn’t go back until the end of summer. I managed to go over 6 months without making my way down to where I went to school, and I found a way to stay away from the place I actually had a job at. Some people fell off; they couldn’t handle the lifestyle I had chosen. Admittedly, I am not that good at staying in touch, but the friends and family that cared found a way to deal with the chaos that was my life. They understood that just because they didn’t hear from me for months at a time, didn’t mean I didn’t care; it just meant I was busy and trying to keep my sanity. They gladly took the late night phone calls to keep me awake while I was driving, and the text conversations that would have hours in between messages. The people that mattered, and the relationships that mattered found a way to survive through the crazy; the ones that didn’t make it were never meant to last. If you can’t support my dreams during the chaos, you don’t get to be a part of the victory lap.

Dirty clothes only smell as bad as you let them. You can let them sit there, creating more and more frustration, or you can handle it and take care of them the minute you get the chance. That option is yours. Some nights, it meant staying up later than I wanted to, and often times, it meant not sorting through the clothes and trying to separate them in to perfect piles. It meant handling them the best I could with the chances I was given. Did all my clothes make it through the summer? Not exactly. But, I did my best, and at the end of the day that is all I could ask of myself.

Priorities are a must. I have a lot of goals, and a lot of “I need to do this”. But, if I learned anything over the summer, it's this… you have to make time for what matters, and deal with the rest later. Just because I wanted to do this and do that, didn’t necessarily mean I had time if I wanted to achieve these and those. I had to make time for what mattered and cross my fingers about the other stuff. I loved living on the road, but it made me step back and decide what really was important at any given moment.

Wrong turns happen; don’t worry, there is GPS for that. I wasn’t going to get the roads right every time. Too many times, I took a left when I needed to go right, and would find myself lost in no man's land. It's okay, though. You aren’t going to get the directions right the first time. There’s this thing called GPS for that. It’s going to lead you to where you need to go and help you re-navigate when you make a mistake. I realized it wasn’t worth it to fret over the mistakes and to just trust that the GPS would lead me to where I needed to go, even if I thought I was right. So, I learned not to worry about the mistakes, to go where I thought the path was taking me, and to just relax and enjoy the views, because even if it was wrong, my GPS would get me on track eventually.

Sometimes, you have to pull over and take a nap. You can’t be go-go-go . The road is long, and the nights are longer. Sometimes, it's all too much, and it's time to wave the white flag, pull over, lean the seat back and close your eyes. The road will still be waiting when you wake up, and the destination will still be there. I found out that pushing through when I could barely see straight was dangerous and not worth it, because in the long term, I always paid for it. So, maybe it's admitting to defeat by the journey, or maybe it's just taking a breath, but ultimately it's necessary, and it makes the next stop that much better because you can actually enjoy it.

I hope you got the head fake here. Originally, I thought my summer was teaching me lessons on how to function, how to "adult" but once I sat down, I realized I was learning lessons on life. It was definitely a summer for the books and one that I am never going to forget. The people I met, the memories I made and the journey I went on changed me, because they put life in to perspective when it was really needed. So, I hope you never let your laundry get too dirty, and you trust your GPS, but mostly, I hope you get to see some incredible views and meet some incredible people, and I hope more than anything you get to spend some time on the road, just to see a different view.