I had a dream, a goal. When I was an older teen and after I finally had the spleen making my childhood a childhood nightmare, removed- there was a dream I had and made efforts towards it...
I wanted to travel the country, on my own in my VW 1974 Super Beetle. This was back in the 80s and to plan something like that meant real research. The kind of research where you had to leave your home and go to a library, to a travel agency for brochures and making phone calls.
I pinpointed America's Four Corners for my first destination. The purpose for putting those miles on that VW's wheels was so I could learn about the culture in the area, visit reservations - find out their struggles and accomplishments, and write about it, in their words. Then I would move on to a new location with the same purpose to learn and share voices..to explore.
This was before the internet and there was nothing like TiKTok where the availability/options/ease to do what I wanted existed in the palm of everyone's hand.
I was young. I was coming out of a period where my childhood was filled with hospital beds or locked away in my room at home. I was sensing freedom from pain, freedom from being born already facing challenges, freedom from my family and the dysfunction swirling. Freedom.
I had just arrived back home from visiting my cousin in Germany. It was a trip I took on my own at 17 and when I was still struggling with those health issues. I, obviously, was bursting to get out in the world and take in all the experiences and adventures I could. Being locked away for all those years my dreams grew out of the darkness. That trip to Germany was a promise I made my grandmother before she had died and quite frankly, no one knew where that spleen thing was heading - more so the underlying cause for it was a mystery and my parents wanted me to make that trip....just in case.
That trip to Germany opened my eyes to what freedom felt like, the type of freedom I had been dreaming about - what I wanted to do with my life, find a way to make money, a living, but also one that fed my mind and all those questions about our world and the different people calling it home. Learn about our difference and celebrate our bonds.
I spent a year or so planning and saving money. I only told a few of my plans - my dreams.
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