I
always wanted to travel. Watching
beautiful landscapes on TV as a kid, I nearly couldn’t breath. I had to get to those places. But how?
I was a girl growing up in a trailer park in Girard, PA. It was a big deal when my family once spent a few days in Cleveland. Telling my family about how I was going to travel the world one day, they would smile and say, “Sure you will.” No one, including me, could see how this dream could possibly come true. I didn’t just want to go to Cleveland, I wanted to go everywhere. And everywhere is expensive.
My first real opportunity to travel came when I was in college. I was a junior and the summer trip to Scotland caught my eye. It was a lot of money, but the two-week adventure could count as credit towards my degree. I was in a sort of an ecstatic agony. Every blood cell in my body ached to go, but I couldn’t completely justify it. I would be broke for a year if I went.
I almost didn’t pick up an application for the trip. I was still a girl who had to pay my tuition in small installments. Even buying shampoo posed a hardship when I only had ten dollars a week to call my own. Scotland seemed wildly impulsive and maybe a bit crazy.
I found out about a small scholarship and hesitated. Could I possibly win it? I scribbled out a messy essay on the travel department’s application and shoved it into the campus mail. I was totally afraid, but, by taking the plunge, I became unreasonably happy.
I can still feel the leap of adrenaline I had when I opened my acceptance letter. I remember crying and laughing and being in awe. I WOULD go to Scotland. I would be broke. I would celebrate and buy a kilt and order a passport and fly on a plane for the first time in my life.
The trip was all I expected: weird and exhausting and new and pretty. But, most of all, the trip was a symbol. I could make my dreams come true. Since that time, I have been to London, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C, Austin, Texas and Arizona. I may not have gone everywhere yet, but I’m working on it.
Comments