I am writing to you from the edge of a pool, trying to ignore the fact that my laptop could overheat at any second and burst into flames and flying mechanical parts.

This is pretty low on my list of worries at the moment, because problems seem so much smaller when you’re in paradise.

I have clinically diagnosed myself (and the help of WebMD) with an allergy to the cold weather. Therefore, I have been in Scottsdale, Arizona this past week, and am doing surprisingly better, despite previous concerns.

However, all jokes aside, my plane for home departs at 8:30 tonight. Boy, am I going to have a case of the Monday’s tomorrow. Add that to five hours of sleep, post-vacation depression, and twenty five degree temperature, and I may need a little more than two shots of caffeine in my coffee.

I have come to the decision that after my final year of high school, I am leaving the place that has been my home for the past seventeen years. I crave an environment where I don’t wake up to gray sky and goosebumps four months out of the year.

Life is too short for goosebumps.

Also, life is too short to stay in one place. If you don’t like where you are, dig up your roots and move. The universe is so much bigger than a single town, city, state, country, or even world.

Leaving the flat hills of Nebraska and looking out over the top of a boulder the size of house made me realize that there is so much our eyes are yet to see.

Some people are just meant to wander. Me, I never stop moving. Ask any one of my family members, and they will tell you how annoying I am when I pace circles around the couch during movie night.

I can’t stop moving, and for the next couple of years, I plan on seeing new faces, eating new food, hearing new music, and watching the sun set over an infinite number of backdrops.

But until then, I am heading back to goosebumps, gray sky, and a shit load of homework.

Hasta la vista, baby.

Maddie Rheinheimer