I’ve always loved traveling. As a kid, at first we didn’t go very far from home. Then as I got older, we moved over 1000 miles away from our Ozark mountains home to a big city in Florida. I remember the city lights as we traveled at night. The rest areas and gas stations were always fun because you could stop and hear people talking to each other and the accents were different from anything I had ever heard. I can still remember the first time I saw palm trees and felt warm air, in December!
After that, I was hooked. I was always wanting to go on a road trip. Then when I got into high school and I became even more in love with history, I began to want to broaden my horizons and go all over the world!
As a teenager I also wanted to be a journalist and go on assignment around the world. I dreamed of that so many times! But as they often do, plans change. In college I struggled, I had severe anxiety and who knows what other undiagnosed conditions that held me back. I used to think it was my fault, that maybe I was just lazy, or maybe I was just too afraid and that I had to do better to overcome those fears. And to be honest, that’s how everyone made me feel.
It’s at this later stage in my life, in my late 40s that I have come to realize it was all because of my mental health. It wasn’t because of something I was doing wrong, but it was a condition I had and still have.
Anyway, this blog post isn’t about mental health, it’s about my love for traveling! Let’s move on shall we?
So, when I didn’t do well in college, I dropped out and took a factory job and got married. After that, all of my time was spent trying to make sure the bills were paid, and even then I struggled with my mental health and had a very hard time functioning every day. During all of that, my dream of traveling got lost. My dream of being a journalist was dead and all I had left was writing. I even let that die.
All of my adult life has been dreaming of places I had only read about. Now, I’m 48, divorced and living in Mexico and this September I will make my first trip to Europe! I cannot tell you how excited I am. I’m bursting at the seams! We will be visiting 5 countries on our trip. As I stated before, I will be talking about each one of those in upcoming blog posts, and maybe you can give me some ideas on places to visit.
In total as of today, i have been to 38 states in the United States as well as a few places in Mexico, Such as Tijuana, Ensenada, Monterrey, and Guadalajara. I’m so excited to go take this first of what I hope to be many trips outside of North America. I want to share this journey with you guys! I want to remind myself again that dreams can and do come true! Oh the stories I can share with you about the absolute crap I’ve dug my way out of. I’m sure you will be able to relate, because isn’t life many times just us digging our way out of one pig sty only to land in another one? But there’s still so much magic that happens to us every day and I can’t wait to share that with you.
As I embark on this adventure, I’m not just seeking new landscapes, but new horizons within. How about we discover them together?