Let’s start my first blog off with a bang. Why? Because it’s MY FIRST BLOG POST and the weather is stormy at the moment. Which happens to be my favourite type of weather for inspiration. Rainy weather has always been the root of some of my wildest (and, in my mind) my most unachievable dreams. In the most unexpected way, though. I would always dream of being on a plane. Imagine what it feels like. What would it look like inside, and what would I feel when I’m sitting in it? I would watch them fly over my house every day and night before I went to sleep. The funny thing is that I never dreamed of the place I would be going to.
Only the plane. I remember being very young—maybe about five years old? And my family dropped a friend off at the airport, and of course we went inside the airport. I don’t remember much, but I do remember being at the plane viewing deck, where you can see all the planes before take-off and how they reverse and drive out to take-off. That was my first real dream that has stuck with me until today. Something about that moment changed my life. Quite literally. It was the day I knew I wanted to be a traveller. Well, hardly in those terms at that young age, but I knew I wanted to be on the other side of this interaction that was happening between us dropping our friend off and this friend who was about to relocate to a different country. I do not even wonder where I would be if that moment never happened, because, quite frankly, I wouldn’t change it.
Since this encounter in my life, I spent the next ten years dreaming about being on that plane that’s going wherever it is going. I am now twenty-three, and if you do the math, it has altered my life. Is it a blessing or a curse? Shortly after this, my parents moved to a place that was eight minutes away from the same airport. Is that now not destiny, in my opinion? The bedroom I was sleeping in had a clear view of planes flying over, and at night you could see a palm tree with a star above it. Almost every night for ten years, I watched that palm tree and star with the planes flying over, and oh, I used to dream and wish on every plane that I’d be on the next flight!
This was actually funny because I grew up with incredibly strict parents! And by strict, I mean, like, super strict. I was not allowed out of their site except for at school, and even then, my mom would watch me walk into the school, and after school, she would watch me walk out into her car. I was only ever allowed to stay at my dad’s sister’s house for a night now and then. I then come back to the fact that, was I not the ultimate dreamer? I was thinking and wishing that I would be on the next flight. My parents would never let that slide.
Until I was fifteen, my school had arranged an international trip called “The Art Tour”. In short, this trip was arranged by our art teacher. It would consist of fifteen students, two teachers, and sixteen days of touring Europe. “Students with no parental guidance in a foreign country for 16 days!”, I just knew that my parents would not allow this. I brought up the tour with my parents and showed them the forms that needed to be filled out. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep that night, thinking that my parents would never agree to this. The next morning, after I had gotten ready for school, whilst being down in the gutters, I walked past our dining room table, and I saw the art tour papers from my school. I went to it for some reason, I guess, to look again at what I’d be missing and to find that my dad signed them! I WAS GOING ON MY VERY FIRST INTERNATIONAL TRIP!
I will never forget. I did not allow myself to get too excited for this trip until I stepped into the airport. That might stem from having such a deep-rooted passion for something that even when it does start coming true, you stay in denial just in case. But that was again a moment that altered me. I fell in love with the entire process. Getting all the legal stuff processed and accepted and packing your bags. Driving to the airport. Walking through those gates! Walking through the tunnels to get into the plane! Take off! The view above the clouds! Landing at night and seeing all the city lights! And OH! I stepped off the plane to smell the air of a different country, and wow, is it different! Experiencing something you never knew prior.
This was just the start, and all of my travels have been the roots of something exceptional in my life. I know I would not be where I am in my life without my passion for travel. The knowledge I’ve gained. My character has been built only the way travel could’ve built it. I’ve worked exceptionally hard at times to enable myself to travel. This much I will never regret. I continue to work hard daily to travel and experience the things that books, money, and love cannot offer.
Let me know what drives you? And why you are where you are today.
Love G