Lately, I’ve been thinking about everything but school —like leaving the country, which I will do on May 20.

Disclaimer: This is super sappy, but necessary.

This opportunity came at perfect time. Junior year has proved to be a challenging, yet defining season for me. Often I’ve felt like I’m balancing on one toe on the tipping point of two steep, glacial divides.

One side is normalcy. The other is the unknown. I could fall either way.

I’ve watched many peers march down carved paths, paved in cement and lined with plaques and trophies. I’ve watched a few others stumble on, doing the same old, same old.

But, I’ve watched myself spin around in a big, unsatisfying, endless circle, not choosing any particular direction.

Perhaps you churn the same grinding wheels.

Well, I want to live my life out of the circle and off the great divide. I want to skip along a squiggly line. No — better yet, I want to draw my own squiggly line.

I know a few people who I consider squiggly-line drawers. They are my inspirations. They have taught me more than any class ever will. I hope they can be a bit of a booster for you, too, and a reminder of the more important things in life.

The lesson list begins here:

1. Endure the bad things in life.

Endurance, for me, comes in the shape of a beautiful young mother who I know from church.

During her college years, this woman trekked across the moors in Scotland for a semester. She warmed herself with scotch and hot tea and somewhere, between endless rainy days, she realized something that would change the way she thought of everything forever.

No one knew who she was. No one cared. She could die there on the hillsides, and no one would know.

That’s when she learned to love and take care of herself, because if she didn’t, no one would.

She came home stronger, healthier, beat an eating disorder and was ready for whatever came next. In her case, it was reclaiming her health, raising a family and pursuing her endless artistic endeavors.

She is my role model.

2. Follow your gut.

One weekend, I met a lanky wanderer who will soon leave school to become a world traveler and sailor. He gave me some books and we talked about life. He asked me what I really wanted to do with my life. I really thought about it and half-jokingly said I wanted to act.

“Then start tomorrow,” he said and looked me firmly in the eye.

I believe he will sail around the cape of South Africa and on into the Mediterranean in less than 10 years, simply because he said he would.

3. Admire the simple things.

Over this school year, I’ve shared several bottles of wine over campfires with a neighbor who’s called more countries home than I will visit in three months.

All semester he kept asking me, “So, when are you leaving for Spain?”

I kept saying, “Not sure yet.”

Finally, one night, he looked at me and said, “If you don’t leave now, you never will.”

I left his incense-infused little nook feeling like he had stuck new eyes in my sockets and wings on my back.

What was I waiting for? I bought a plane ticket not long after that.

In light of this year’s lessons, it is my stated mission for the summer to feast on the marrow of life, instead of safely tucking it away into tupperware containers for a future, yet to exist.

With my inspirational lessons in mind, I want to accomplish the following while in Europe: I want to not wear makeup for a month straight. I want to feel pretty in a ponytail, like when I was five. I want to only wear sports bras and not care how old I look. I hope to sleep a little grungy and not count how many calories of wine I consume.

If my EasyJet plane to Venice is delayed, I want to embrace the situation as a perfect opportunity to people-watch.

I want to smile at my insignificance when no one on the busy Madrid streets knows who I am. I want to meet a few gypsies and fill up a journal with meaningless prose.

My ultimate hope, though, is not to care if I don’t accomplish these things. Besides, what could I do to change it? Nothing.

And that’s OK. It’s just another squiggle in my line.

Lindsey Allgood is a professional writing junior. Her column normally appears every other Tuesday.