Makayla Hickey (she/her) is the Associate Opinions Editor for The Heights. She is from Norfolk, Mass. You can contact her at makayla.hickey@bcheights.com.
“The memories you make abroad are the ones that will last a lifetime.” I’d be willing to bet that nearly everyone studying abroad has heard this sentiment in some form or another. Whether it was older cousins telling stories about their semesters in Italy or professors wishing me luck on my semester away, the idea that my travels would take up permanent residence in my memory was drilled into my conscience before I even left Boston.
When I was in elementary school, I was no stranger to nightmares. Though many of them featured outlandish scenes of giant spiders, one particular nightmare haunted me with its unsettling realism.
For nearly fifteen years, this nightmare remained fictional—until this past weekend.
I spent my winter break prepping for my upcoming semester abroad by creating the framework for a travel spreadsheet. I immediately set up columns for flight information and started compiling a list of dream destinations. I couldn’t wait to begin strategically booking out my weekends.
But as the day of my flight to London approached and packing took priority, the idea of pre-planning trips with friends took a backseat. All of my energy went into preparing for move-in, and I kept telling myself that I’d have more than enough time to plan trips once I was settled across the ocean.
London has been a dream of mine since childhood. It was a place I saw in storybooks and movies, dotted with grand palaces and cherry red double-decker buses. Hollywood’s version convinced me that it was the pinnacle of perfection, at least in the eyes of my younger self.
Standing in Maloney Hall on that dull February day, I was overcome with excitement, knowing I would finally get to live out the life 11-year-old Makayla had always dreamed of.
So how can love span both mutual and unreciprocated feelings, encompass romance and platonism, and be both given and felt? By using the word in such a variety of ways, we are simultaneously overgeneralizing and severely restricting love in our language.
It might sound cliche, but the only way I’ve been able to truly move past rejection and stoke personal growth is by viewing failure as a gateway to second chances rather than an excuse to give up.
Your timeline is a work in progress, not a pre-ordained narrative. And you are so much more than a pawn moving between tasks. Appreciate the journey to reaching success, acknowledge the wisdom gained from each of your achievements, and do not be afraid to stray from the path.
The necessity of music as an emotional outlet is indisputable in my opinion, but it typically serves as background noise to the ever-moving world around us. Concerts provide a brief interlude from the onslaught of life’s stressors, allowing us to live life in a pure state of awe and uninterrupted emotion.
For as long as I can remember, the value of kindness has been emphasized in nearly every aspect of my life. “Be kind to others” was scribbled at the top of the easel papers that served as elementary school classroom constitutions.
If you had asked me a year ago to define what home meant to me, I would tell you it was the winding back roads that I spent endless hours driving down with my best friends.
