"I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate."

When I left NYU - I had no plan. I thought up ways to spend my time, some ridiculous, others too practical for a gap year. According to every college counselor, gap years are meant to be spent learning things a classroom could not provide you - an education you acquire for yourself. In Layman's terms and in the hope of every college breaker, to seize every opportunity, to take that train to nowhere, to break from patterns meant to keep us in line and at bay with society and our place in it. And the pressure to make the most of one pressure-free year was a catch-22 I didn't see coming because, again, I had no plan.

The Liberty Memorial and World War I museum was a place my brother visited often in the months before he left for Afghanistan. When I was a little girl and forming memories for the first time, I can recall, with about the same haziness as the photo below, my brother and father taking me here to the top of the memorial. I didn't know what WWI was, in fact, I assumed at this age that when people talked about the world, they were referring to Kansas City. I thought Kansas City, Missouri was the world. 

In 2006, the museum was built underground and surrounding the base of the conical memorial, the only one of its kind in America. And although 445 Kansas Citians perished in the war that killed near 10 million soldiers - we became a city of another kind to steward the memory of the Great War, and in this memorial alone do I believe we are a world class city. Few American cities lend themselves to represent the world. New York has its Statue of Liberty where "From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome" and all the worlds' leaders may settle in Washington D.C. if nowhere else, but what has America contributed to the war to end all wars beyond the 116,708 military deaths? The Liberty Memorial was the answer given by Kansas City, the first and only city to answer the question. 

I volunteer on Fridays and spend my time mostly talking to the old men - some veterans, some historians, others war buffs, and all the definition of an American. In my world, as short a life as I have lead, I feel as though I keep a secret shared with these men, a passion for a period in our history long forgotten by most. It is an experience powerful enough to redefine my idea of this 'gap year' - as I am supposed to call it. Maybe, without planning, it is to be the year of my life.