Taylor abbate

In 2019, I was 25 years old, three years out of college, and still in my first full-time job as an entry-level meeting planner. I was living in Kansas City after graduating from college. Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, Kansas City felt like the right place to start my adult life: affordable, close enough to drive home, but far enough away to start fresh. At the time, I didn’t really know where I fit professionally, personally, or in the world. For years, I watched other people reach milestones and I assumed those milestones weren’t meant for someone like me. I put people on pedestals and believed there was a version of life other people got to have, but maybe I didn’t. When I saw Dear World at an industry conference, I wanted to participate but everyone walking up seemed to know exactly what they wanted to say. When it was my turn, I froze. I couldn’t think of anything. Someone suggested, “Going Places.” I remember feeling like a fraud. I didn’t think someone like me was going places. But I took the picture anyway. Somewhere in that moment, I decided I was going to make those words true. I didn’t know when or how. I just promised myself I was going places: in my career, through travel, in love, and in who I was becoming. I didn’t realize then how many different kinds of places I would go, including some I never wanted to visit. Growing up, my family didn’t travel much. When we did, we visited family in Arizona. I promised myself that someday I would move to Arizona. In 2023, I did. I packed up my apartment of seven years and moved across the country alone. I landed my first Director role and built a life in the place I had always felt drawn to. The dream wasn’t perfect. The job made me miserable. I spent months applying for other opportunities and questioning whether I even belonged in my industry. I took another opportunity, only to become unhappy again. Then I was laid off and found myself unemployed for the first time in my life. I felt lost and unsure what the future held. At the same time, I was going through a lot of personal growth. I started therapy and began learning how to love myself instead of constantly comparing myself to everyone around me. For so long, I thought I was behind. Friends were getting married, buying homes, and starting families, while I felt like I was standing still. I eventually realized that I wasn’t behind. I was simply on a different path. That realization changed the way I approached my life. I started putting myself out there in Arizona, even when it was uncomfortable. I let people get to know me. I let myself fall in love. I let myself be happy without constantly waiting for something to go wrong. Most importantly, I started believing that I deserved the life I had spent so long wishing for. A few years later, I unexpectedly lost my job. It was then that I reconnected with an industry colleague who saw something in me and offered me an opportunity to join his company. I am still with that company today and am the happiest I have ever been. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’ve found a place where I belong and can thrive. I’ve learned that sometimes going places means being willing to start over, take a chance, and trust yourself enough to step into something unfamiliar. Personally and professionally, I don’t measure my success by whether my life looks like someone else’s. I measure it by whether it feels like mine. When I look at that photograph now, “Going Places” means so much more than my career. It means becoming the person I once didn’t believe I could be. It means choosing happiness, taking chances, traveling, building meaningful relationships, learning to love myself, and believing I am worthy of love, success, adventure, and a life that feels authentic to me. It also means understanding that the wrong turns count, too. The jobs that didn’t work. The rejection. The loneliness. The uncertainty. The moments when I thought everyone else was moving forward while I was standing still. I needed to go to those places, too, because every one of them brought me closer to myself. In 2019, I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew I wanted to become someone who was going places. Now I realize she didn’t need to know where she was going. She just needed to be willing to go.