The older I get the more I worry about where I’m going to end up on this good Earth. It’s an important question I find myself thinking about more and more. Where do I go after college? Where does the Lord want me? How far away from my parents should I go? Do I follow a friend? Is the best option really just to become a cold hearted hermit hiding away in the mountains of some distant land? What’s the weather like in afore mentioned land?

Maybe I’ll end up on the West Coast. Being from a not so small yet not so big town in northwest Iowa, southern California has oddly enough never appealed to me. Too big and too fast. Too hot. So I want something cooler, farther up north. I think to myself, maybe northern California? But no one I know is in northern California, so it would have to be really worth it. Some friends of mine want to settle even farther up north, in Seattle, Washington. Maybe I could go to Seattle, too?

I’ve got family near Seattle. I would have friends I could visit, or even room with for a while, until our lives there are worked out. It’s a big city, so there would be tons of things to do and see. But it’s not so big as to scare me away. Seattle has mild winters and summers, compared to what we experience here in Iowa. Considering my current career plans for after college, would I be able to get a job in Seattle? Seattle also doesn’t get a lot of sun, and since I’m already prone to seasonal depression, would I be able to live without a lot of sunlight, no matter how much I like rain? What about a place with more sun?

I’m just about as far south as I want to be here in Iowa, but I’ve always wanted to see the East coast. I study history in school, so I’m particularly interested in Boston, Massachusetts. I’m a big fan of the song “Boston”by Augustana, and I’ve wanted to see the city since I was in high school. Boston is only slightly bigger than Seattle, and it’s close to the coast like Seattle, as well. Boston, however, isn’t blessed by the same light winters Seattle is. None of my friends or family are near Boston, or plan to move near Boston in the future. Perhaps I should move in with a friend right after college.

One of my roommates wants to move to Chicago, Illinois for graduate school after college. Chicago is a very large city, so I’m betting I wouldn’t ever get bored. However, it’s size is a little intimidating to someone who’s grown up in a town of about 80k people. I’ve heard Chicago is a dangerous city, but I’ve got to keep in mind there’s more crime in larger cities. I don’t think it would be too difficult to get a job in a city as large as Chicago, at least in my area of education. Chicago also experiences harsh winters, but at this point I’ve accepted there’s no where I want to live that doesn’t get snow dumped all over it, except maybe Seattle, but doesn’t that put me back at square one?

The more I think about staying in my home town the more I want to leave. I’ve got to get out, I tell myself, lying in bed at 3 in the morning. My city haunts my sleep. Can I ever really be more than where I come from? Is it brave to leave, or selfish? Is it better to go it with a friend, or should I reinvent myself, go to a place where no one knows my name? Do I have the courage to leave everything I’ve ever known? Will Iowa betray me, in the end?

The finishing lines from Looking for Alaska by John Green are these: “Thomas Edison's last words were: "It's very beautiful over there." I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.”