To this day, it surprises me that I travel as much as I do. Or that I have traveled as much as I have. Most people, know me as a “the free spirit.” The one who travels with the wind. Never staying put and always up for an adventure. But knowing myself 20 years ago, I would have never imagined studying abroad in India for four months or spending Christmas in Guatemala or scuba diving in the cenotes in Mexico. Brave was just not who I was. I was actually pretty far from it.
When I was younger, I was a very scared child. A “scaredy-cat,” you could say. I had a hard time sleeping alone in my bedroom, with fear of the boogie man coming out of my closet. I remember my father having to bolt a heavy iron lock on my closet door, with hopes to keep the boogie man from coming out. Even that didn’t work though. I was still scared. I had a set of bunk beds in my room and my mother would have to sleep on the bottom bunk in order for me to fall asleep at night. Once I did and she made her way back to her bedroom, I would follow her there and retire to my homemade sleeping bag bed on the floor. In my pre-teen years, I had this stint of sleeping on my parent’s floor, right at the foot of their bed. I laid layers of sleeping bags upon each other, creating a cozy “floor” bed which I religiously came to sleep in every night.
Being that I was even too scared to sleep in my own room, I could barely imagine the thought of spending the night somewhere else. I remember a few attempts I made at my cousin’s house, always resulting in my mother having to pick me up early in the evening, from me being too scared to stay over. I was a big, wimpy scaredy-cat. There, I said it, I really was. I couldn’t join in with my friends when they had sleepovers for their birthdays and I missed out on my sixth grade Safety Patrol field trip to Washington DC, all because I was afraid. I was scared. I let my fear of the unknown and unfamiliar take over my life and what I could and could not do. I knew it was a problem and something had to change. I couldn’t sleep on my parent’s floor forever.
After I was too big for my bunk beds, my father and I set out to find a bed for me. At a garage sale one weekend, we came across this $30 brass bed. It was beautiful and my father shined it up, put it together, and it became my bed for the next 17 years. In some ways I will always thank the brass bed, and my father for adamantly buying it for me. Maybe it was just that I needed a change. A symbol of maturity, to grow up and reclaim my strength. My independence. I remember sleeping in it the first night and feeling scared, unsure. Wanting so badly to feel that sense of protection from my mother and comfort of my sleeping bag bed but knowing that I needed to push through my fear and finally sleep on my own. Waking up in the morning, alone in my bed, I surprised myself with what I just accomplished. Stunned, that I needed to feel uncomfortable in order to feel free. That feeling continued to stay with me, pushing me through my teen years, making me embrace and enjoy sleepovers, class trips, and spring break trips with my friends. This sense of independence began to grow larger and larger, pushing me to the point of my first big trip. The summer I went to France.
France will always be the trip that opened the traveling abroad door for me. It wasn’t just a little trip; it was a 23-day voyage from Paris to the Loire Valley countryside. It was the first time I flew on a plane by myself. I remember taking a book and my journal and writing poems the whole way to France. I remember feeling very grown up. Having the complete freedom of sitting at the gate by myself, being whoever and however I wanted to be, because nobody around me knew who I was; where I was coming from and where I was going. Nobody knew I was a girl from a small town like Cherry Valley, heading to Paris, one of the grandest cities in the world. In a way I loved this feeling. I could pretend I was a whole new person. Daring and courageous. Not some scaredy cat who used to sleep on her parents’ floor. As intimidated as I was at the chance to be traveling solo, I also embraced this new unknown feeling, as it made me braver. Stronger. Smarter. And little by little, this concept of discovering more and more of this great big world and stepping out of my comfort zone again and again, became the way I chose to live my life from then on.
After France, I felt like I could travel anywhere. It took me 2 years in college to decide where I wanted to travel abroad for my senior semester. I first took Italian, thinking Italy would be a fantastic semester abroad. Then I took a course in Kenyan culture and believed Kenya would be a better fit. Somewhere completely different from anywhere I had ever been. Italy seemed a little too easy and straight forward. Finally, I was approached by my English advisor about a trip she was hosting to India. India. A country that never crossed my mind, but a place that would humble me in every way. India. Something so far out of my comfort zone, it made me even braver just thinking about. After a vigorous application process and interviews, I was accepted into the India study abroad program and conducted my senior thesis project along the banks of the Ganges and Yamuna River. How rewarding and eye opening that trip was for me. Culturally, religiously, spiritually. After a trip like that, it was hard to not crave and seek out all the places that are so entirely different from the United States and what I knew.
Guatemala came at just the right time. 10 years after India, my heart was ready for a challenge. A breath of something new. Again, a country that never crossed my mind of wanting to visit or explore, but one that will always stand out to me in its beauty and differences. From its black sand beaches to its mountain line of volcanoes, to its luscious green rain forests, Guatemala gave me a sense of knowledge and excitement that I couldn’t simply get from staying put in the all too familiar. Guatemala served not only as a pre honeymoon vacation with my soon to be husband, but as the “Aha!” moment of why traveling is so important to me after all. Of how traveling has changed me into a stronger and braver person. We all have the choice to stay put and exactly where we are in our lives. It is comfortable, it is easy, it is all too familiar. We come to like this feeling and somehow become stuck in it. But we also have the option to explore, to travel, to put our feelers out into the world that was created for us to see. We have the freedom to go to new places and experience so many different cultures and traditions. The world is like an open textbook, waiting for us to read and receive. To live in.
I know it’s not easy. I know it’s scary to stretch yourself into doing something that does not feel familiar or comfortable. But maybe if we simply tried, took the baby steps to accepting something entirely foreign and frightening, it would expand into a space of bravery within us. Molding us into more courageous and confident humans. That sleeping bag bed on the floor may seem warm and cozy, but it was the brass bed that made me realize how hard and uncomfortable sleeping on the floor really was. My fears became so scary and intimidating, that I had to break free of them altogether in order to grow and thrive again in my life. If I wasn’t afraid for a moment in my youth, I would have never matured into the human and traveler I am today. Looking back onto who I was, I am thankful that I got to experience both extremes, to understand better my place within this world.
From scaredy-cat to free spirit, we all have the choice to surprise ourselves just a little bit.