Hello, my name is Meredith Summers and I have a Type A personality. There. I said it. I have been trying to pretend for my whole life that I’m Type B, but I just can’t hide it anymore.

Being a Type A person, I am all about maps. When I go somewhere I like to know exactly where I’m going and precisely how I am going to get there. For example, this past weekend I went to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn (yes, I’m also the type of person who goes sightseeing in cemeteries but that’s a discussion for another time).  Naturally, I did some research before I went and I was assured by the cemetery’s website that I would be able to find a map at any of the entrances.

Unfortunately, when I arrived, I could not find a map anywhere.  Additionally, I couldn’t find anyone to ask about finding a map. So of course I panicked. The cemetery is almost 450 acres–how was I supposed to find any of the graves of the cemetery’s famous residents without my trusty map? I contemplated just leaving but after the 45 minute subway ride I felt like I had to see something.

I started walking around (aimlessly) and noticed that from certain points in the cemetery there are great views of the Manhattan skyline, the Statue of Liberty, and perhaps most importantly, the Red Hook Ikea.  I walked around for a few hours and I never found any dead famous people, but I did learn something.

Yes, kids, the saccharine sweet moral to this story is that I learned that I don’t always need a map.  I missed out on the graves of some of the world’s greatest innovators, but I still had a good time just walking around and taking it all in.

In the next few months, I will graduate from Fordham and thereby end my formal education (at least for now) and have to find my own place to live.  I don’t know where I’m supposed to go or what I’m supposed to do and in that sense I am now without a map.  And maybe that isn’t a such bad thing after all.