May 23, 2015: The day I explained my blog to the world.

“She Needed Wide Open Spaces” has a lot of different meanings for me. Initially, I was just so anxious to start a blog that I was about ready to settle for any name that sounded remotely creative. I started to think about phrases that were meaningful to me, and I came upon the Dixie Chick’s old album, “Wide Open Spaces”, (throwback to the late 90’s)! The single, with the same name, was one of my favorite songs growing up (mostly because it was incredibly catchy). Now, as I have gotten older, the
song has a different meaning to me. Right now, in this present moment, it captures my exact emotions. The song is essentially about a girl’s desire to leave home, find a dream and a life of her own, to make her own mistakes and independently tackle the world.

Two of my biggest fears have always been failure and change. It’s not that I am not open to new opportunities and adventures,  but more that I am scared to leave things behind, to not have things from my past exactly the way they were. It is incredibly hard for me to think about people or situations in my life not being there, or at least not in the same capacity. This all presents a problem- because I simply cannot have it both ways. After high school, I decided to attend college in my hometown. Although I have been fortunate enough to live in the dorms and experience a new sense of independence, I have always had this feeling that I got “left behind” from all my friends who decided to go far from home to experience “bigger and better things”.

These days, I am a little envious of that. I feel like I need to just jump and make a change. I crave this. It is hard for me to accept that life is moving and changing and it isn’t going to wait for me to “be ready” for the changes that are bound to happen. For the first time in my life, I feel like I not only want to start embracing change, but to make a conscious effort to make changes.

I want to learn and to grow and to expand myself as much as possible. I know that I want to help people. Helping people is my ultimate goal in life. It is what I love to do, on any and every scope. I feel as though the more I experience and enrich myself, uncover about life, and understand about this world: The more people I can reach, help, and impact. I want to expose myself to things I’ve never seen before, unveil my ignorances and fill these gaps with knowledge and awareness. There is so much that I do not know about this world, and I hope to never, ever, stop learning about it.

Yes, it was a lot longer than that, and yes, you probably didn’t want to re-read that, but I am ecstatic to announce that I am putting my dream of change, my dream of getting the “wide open space” that I am looking for, into full effect as I have decided to study abroad in Rome, Italy this fall.

Here, I will be able to learn and grow and expand myself in the exact way that I have dreamt about for my entire life.

I can’t wait to start on this trip of a lifetime and to be enriched by all the new things that I come upon. Thank you to everyone that has helped me continue to grow and realize that this is something that I need. Can’t wait to blog all about it in just 5 short months.

Keep Smiling,

Jenna