My stomach dropped onto the scuffed-up train floor as I woke to the conductor calling the last stop — it was not Salzburg.

I looked across the aisle and saw my cousin Jack was still sleeping, his football player physique sprawled across both seats. I called his name to break the news.

He laughed, as one does when feeling drained after a series of missed subways and delayed trains and a midnight surprise of yet another travel mishap.

Slightly panicked, but mostly tired, we found the conductor. He kindly offered us our only solution: Wait another 40 minutes for this train to head back to its resting point for the night. From there, we could take a bus back to Austria.

Jack and I solemnly walked through a dark German city we’d never return to. One restaurant in the town square was open; my body pleaded for dessert. Anything to add a drop of sunlight to this never-ending night, but they only offered alcohol and pizza.

We ordered water and stared sullenly, exchanging few words besides his occasional attempts at controversial conversations, a staple of our cross-continent trip. For three weeks, from Italy to Amsterdam, we’d had a handful of meaningful talks, but mostly we planned and kept to ourselves on trains.

Sleep no longer felt like an option this evening. My mind wandered to a well-worn, post-college graduation thought groove: What was I going to do with my life?

The beauty of Italy and Switzerland and the busyness of travel and food had eased the worry a bit, which was the goal of the trip. But now, without distraction, in the white noise of a nearly empty bar, it returned. What if I didn’t get a job? How much longer would I live with my parents? What did I want to do? What was I doing wrong? Why did I feel hopeless?

Forty minutes later, back on the train, I sat with perfect posture as we headed toward our destination. A lot of time would pass before I slept on a train again.

People were dressed in old-timey German clothing. They laughed and I imagined what it would have been like to have partied with them, if instead of missing our train we had made new friends. Maybe, I mused, I should ditch my post-graduation worries and stay here. I shook that thought when a group of older men asked for my water as I passed and called out “good girl” as I walked to my seat.

Getting to the bus stop remains a blur. I’m sure Jack found it first and ran to ensure us seats. Jack’s decisiveness is something I’d been trying to find in myself for years. Traveling with him made my lack of confident decision- making more apparent than ever. I hoped by the time we got back home I’d carry some of his conviction with me into my job search.

We got our seats and people filed in, mostly Austrians on their way home after a night of drinking, dancing and singing, as many still occasionally broke out their vocal talents.

If I had been in a better mood, I would have embraced the beauty of the moment. The unlikelihood I would ever find myself again in this position, surrounded by drunken, singing, laughing strangers well past midnight crammed together on a bus in the middle of nowhere Austria. Instead, I acknowledged it was a moment of human connection I was going to ignore and wished they would stop singing.

We finally walked through our hostel doors and a realization greeted me as hard as the fluorescent lights. We had made it back to our temporary home. It had taken at least two subways, three trains, a bus and a taxi, but we made it. At the end of the day, I still got to sleep in a bed and take a hot shower in the morning. And I realized we have no choice but for things to work out. And sometimes that means simply making it home, with home always being more of a concept than a place.

That realization eased my post-graduation thought groove. The future will work out. If I metaphorically wake up at the wrong stop, I’ll find a kind conductor for directions or the confidence to find my seat on a crowded bus. And if I’m really desperate, I can always walk.

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