Welcome to Jamaica!

           It’s 2020— and it’s the first weekend of the new year. Many may already know this, but I am going into my last semester of my senior year. I’m an English major with an emphasis in creative writing (poetry) alongside gender studies and psychology minors. Of course, with all those extra academic pursuits, there has been a bit of a time crunch and so after registering for the maximum credits possible for my Spring semester— I was left having to fulfill an ‘oral competency’ requirement in order to graduate. So, I began to look to see if this class was offered abroad. I spent my entire junior year abroad, frolicking in the Fall in London (United Kingdom) and savoring Spring in Sydney (Australia). Studying abroad seemed like the normal thing to do in this situation— I’d miss the extra time I could have spent with my family, but I felt like this was a perfect opportunity to get me out of my comfort zone once again.

            I’m not new to traveling, I was lucky enough to have parents who were able to and could afford to take my older brother and I traveling when we were young. As I got older, I began to venture out more on my own traveling adventures. At 15, I joined a group of college students to travel India for a month with a tour. At 19, I traveled on my own to link up with a friend in Colombia where we spent several weeks back-packing. At 20, I flew to Tblisi in the Republic of Georgia for a three-week poetry workshop led by Fence Magazine. And of course, I spent my junior year abroad, traveling to over 10 countries between those two semesters.

            I may seem like a seasoned traveler and to some extent I am. But that is one of the biggest joys of traveling— is that every time you cross a boundary, whether it be a physical or mental border, you have a new experience. These experiences are what make us grow. They are what pull our eye-lashes apart, making us widen our eyes in awe, they’re what put a little hole in that balloon that’s ever-expanding in our chest, this balloon is an expanding heaviness, making it hard to breathe. As our eyes open and our chest expands, something is let in. It might be joy or peace. But sometimes it’s anger or sorrow. But it is these emotions that cause us to expand our world-view, our understanding, and hopefully, in the end make us better people— whatever that may mean to you.

            Growth is a bit off-putting. We know it’s good for us in the end, but it hurts to get through. It’s like taking vitamins. And not the chewy cherry or orange flavored vitamins in the shape of Flintstone characters. No, the sort of vitamins or medicine that Mary Poppins talks about needing a spoonful of sugar to get down. In the long-run, these are what help your bones get stronger, or hair get silkier (if you watch enough conspiracy theories you may disagree but let’s just say the chem-trails may have gotten to me on this one).

            Even with all this supposed growth I have gotten through traveling, I have a lot to work on. Like any other overly optimistic goal-setter, I love the new year. More times for goals and growth. Yet maybe I don’t need to work on every bit of myself. Maybe certain flaws are things I can just learn to accept. Sounds like another goal doesn’t it? I mean, I’ve been on hundreds of flights, many across the world and yet I’m still anxious preparing to leave. Part of it may be a bit of my ‘type-A’ personality. The rest of it is probably just there to remind myself that I can’t forget my passport, or that yes, I do need to wake up at 2am to catch that flight to Minneapolis from Colorado before getting on another flight to Jamaica (Yeah…. geographically it doesn’t make sense. Thanks Delta.)

            In my life I’ve been to about 20 countries, which is a ton, or barely any, depending on who you ask— but to me, I’m happy with where I’ve been and I’m happy with where I am going. And I’m excited to see Jamaica! A huge reason why I chose to take this class abroad, in addition to the looming graduation requirement, is that I’m not sure how long I have here. I don’t expect anything to inhibit or end my traveling in the future, but I don’t know what exactly the future holds. I decided, going on the long-dead cliché of ‘you only live once’ (YOLO!), that I may never get another chance to see Jamaica. So, I decided to apply and take the future into my own hands as much as possible.