I needed Susan Eisenberg to ask me, "Do You Know Where You're Going?"
Exterior of the Grolier Poetry bookshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Last month, I traveled alone to Boston to present my communication studies research at a three-day undergraduate conference at Harvard University . I have a love-hate relationship with solo travel because I have social anxiety and it can be difficult to push myself to leave my hotel room. The first day of the conference, I befriended two medical researchers from North Carolina who invited me to go to an art museum in Boston with them that evening. I felt a sense of relief over not having to make my own plans. After the last speaker session, we filed out into the premature dark of winter in Cambridge. Unfortunately, the other two researchers were wearing uncomfortable shoes; they had to go back to their hotel and change. I told them to message me when they were leaving and we could meet up at the museum. As I walked back to my hotel, I felt hungry, tired and alone. I waited an hour for a message from the other research...
