Graduates in Wonderland: The International Misadventures of Two (Almost) Adults

You won’t be able to do this ten years from now—just leave everything behind and go.

I know so much is going to happen here, but I just don't know how. It feels like Paris is full of so many adventures just waiting to be had.

How do we deal with all the people we’ve been? What happens when we have to confront them?

There's a simplicity and a sense of adventure to being alone, and I sometimes envy you for having it, as you explore Paris. Even when you're getting your heart broken, you can still wake up and not know what's going to happen next.

nothing was ever accomplished by someone who sits in their apartment alone waiting for life to begin.

I think no matter where you go, you'll be happy as long as you know why you're there.

The interlude before anything begins is always my favorite moment. So much unknown, but everything is already set up and we both know something is going to happen--but we just don't know how or when yet.

I fell in love with him. But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else available. I stay with him because I choose to everyday that I wake up, everyday that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me.

I'm realizing that no matter where I go, I'l always be missing someone.

Everywhere people and friendships are changing. I'm starting to wonder how many friends I've made here will still be friends for the long haul. How many places can you leave people behind and still expect to keep in touch with all of them?

I don't know exactly what drove me to stray, but I think there's a certain sadness to finally getting what you want.

At least you didn't waste years on him. It's better to know the truth about someone sooner, rather than later.

Maybe he doesn't like real women, only ideal women he puts on pedestals.

There are so many unknowns right now. Maybe the fortune-teller is rubbing off on me, but I'm starting to think there are no wrong choices in life.

I have been gone for some time now. It's hard to see my family only once or twice a year. I thought it would get easier as time passed, but it feels like as I get older, it makes me more sad. Sometimes I wake up in my apartment and really remember that most of my friends and family are more than six thousand miles away from me and I get a pang of loneliness.

And you have to remind yourself that new opportunities exist, and will always exist.

I also have no idea how to be a girlfriend. I love sleeping alone and I avoid sick people at all costs. I don't even cook for myself, so I need someone who appreciates a lovingly baked frozen pizza.

I want to tell [him] everything - everything that has ever happened to me, every observation I have ever had, and I want to share every book, song, or movie I have ever loved

On principle, I don't want to teach English. It's a slippery slope. You agree to teach English and then suddenly you're forty-five, with a fanny pack and Teva sandals, still teaching English, except inexplicably you have become a white male and you have a hot Chinese girlfriend and everyone else thinks you're a creep.

We've both moved our lives across the world and when it comes to what we are looking for, I think we're getting warmer.

I'm sad to be leaving my life here, but I know that it's time to move on.

When we first made the choice to move abroad, it was a random and exciting decision. But each time, it takes a little more out of us.

I'm tired of starting over in new countries. The first two times were exciting, but the next place I go, I want to stay for a long time. Each time, it gets harder and harder to leave behind my friends, my work, and all of my connections. I'd love to be in a place where I can have 113 books without giving them all away in a year or buy something that weighs more than five pounds.

I don't know how many more times I can uproot my life. I'm beginning to think that all of the energy we've taken relocating to new places should be put toward creating a life that's sustainable.

New measure of love: letting someone stay with you for an extended amount of time and not having it drive you insane.

It's so strange how people become so tied up with your experience of a place. I won't be able to remember Paris without thinking about him.

Suddenly, I like not knowing.

I know for sure now that I am not a teenager anymore because I realize that this great guy belongs to someone else, and I'm hoping that mine is still out there.

There's something unnerving about being so close to the life I was living as a seventeen-year-old. Have I changed at all? I remember my own dreamy beliefs about the incredible unknown, but I know the realities of going out into the world by yourself.

There's a simplicity and sense of adventure to being alone.