Growing up seems to be a mass of contradictions. It is sudden. It is gradual. It is straightforward. It is complicated. How can anything harmonic come out of something so full of opposites that it seems like it should be an impossible tangle of multicolored yarn? These were my thoughts as my plane landed in Ireland. I was about to step on the ground of a different country, one that would play a part in my odyssey of maturing. Five...

Do not freak out if you don't get into your top choice and...