YA Outside the Lines

I was twenty years old the first time I got on a plane.   I grew up in Massachusetts. At twenty, the furthest I’d ever been from home was a one-day road trip to New York City—a trip I was deeply grateful for. The city was a magical place—and it made me want to venture out more. Ever since I could remember, I’d dreamed of going to France. I’d been studying it in school—the regions, the people, the food and culture. And so, one day I decided to actually go.  When I landed in Nice—palm trees lining the promenade, the Mediterranean stretching out in impossible blue, I felt completely disoriented. Everything was bright, airy, slower. Even the sunlight felt foreign, as did the people. The students in my program had stories. They’d backpacked across continents, studied languages abroad. Some had lived in multiple states, even multiple countries. They spoke casually about places I had only seen in books. Their dreams were different, too. For most of them, money wasn’t the first concer...