On how Lily from How I Met Your Mother is me in a nutshell, and Max is Marshall.

"I'm a scaredy-cat okay? I want to be the type of person who just charges fearlessly into the unknown, but I came back two weeks early from Paris because I was lonely. I went to San Francisco and I was never more depressed in my life. I'm small town Marshall, I'm a hick from Brooklyn who's terrified of living more than ten subway stops from where I was born."

That feeling is every reason why I think that I'll always be at war with myself. I've always wanted to do everything, experience everything, go anywhere and just live my life. And the opportunities have always been there. Hell, I live five minutes from the ocean, in a city that people would kill to live in, and I can't wait to go back home. I was all set to go to the Ukraine for six months, I was accepted into the program and everything, and I couldn't do it. Movies like Into the Wild make me so happy, that spirit of letting go and just living freely and simply. That idea of getting on a train and never looking back, only forward. But when it comes down to it, I can't take chances. I can't throw away the things that bring me comfort. And I will always resent myself until I can.

But then there's more to this conversation. Marshall responds:

"Okay! Fine! Maybe the only sentence I know is 'Come on bro. Don't Bogart all the Funions.' But I know, in my heart that you understand me anyway. Because no one has ever understood anyone better than you and I understand each other. Is this trip going to be scary? Yes. Do I like the idea of not knowing the language? Of course not. But I believe we can do this. I love you, Lily. I love you."

And that's the real reason that I am Lily in her first statement. The places she went, she went alone. She went without Marshall. She tried to charge fearlessly into the unknown with half of her missing. And so have I. I stayed in my hometown, even though I always knew that I needed to be with Max. I came here to Long Beach, because I thought that two years wouldn't be too long. But every second I'm with that man, wherever we are is home. I wasn't afraid to go to Portland with him. I had tried to go by myself for years, and I couldn't. But buying those plane tickets with him, was the easiest thing in the world.

So maybe it's hard for me to throw away schoolwork from 3rd grade. Maybe it's hard to let go of drawings, or stories I wrote as a child. But when it comes down to taking chances, exploring new things, and doing things that seem terrifying, home is never further than he is.

-H.B.