Traveling is many things to me, it is seeing new people, trying new things, being able to say that I went there, and just being able to leave my home town. I love to travel and go somewhere new. Sometimes it is hard to travel for long periods of time. Every person travels differently, some people travel to see someone or something. Other people travel to get away from home or to get away from stress.

Traveling is exciting, when I travel it makes me feel like I’m living, not simply breathing but living and feeling every moment because life is too short to waste the time that you have been given. There are so many places I want to go, people I want to see, and things I want to do. When you travel you are making memories that you will never forget and meet people that might just change your entire life. When I travel I bring home a piece of that place and when I leave that place I leave a piece of myself. In 2013 I traveled with my church family on a mission trip to Rhode Island we helped rebuild homes for senior citizens who can no longer afford or cannot physically renovate their homes. My crew painted the inside and outside of the home of an elderly women. She lost her husband to lung cancer in 2008 and all of her children had moved out of the state except for one who at the time was abusing substances. She had been trying to get him help but every time he came over he only needed money, he never wanted her to help him. Until one night he had been out with friends. They had been drinking and doing drugs that night and her son ran a red light and was hit dead on by a tractor trailer. There were two girls (25 and 27) and two boys (22 and 24) in that car. Her son was killed on impact and the two girls were killed as well. The other two boys were able to get out. Those two boys had on a seatbelt and everyone else did not. 

She asked us to paint the outside of her home grey and the trim of her windows red. My crew didn’t think that her house looked very pretty because of the red trim, but she absolutely loved it. While we worked on her home she told us about her husband. She said that when they were younger, they would go on dates and he would bring an apple for them to share for desert. While she was talking about their love story, I noticed that her placemats had apples on them as well as her kitchen towels. There were at least 50 apple themed decorations in her kitchen. When the week was over it was very hard for me and the rest of my crew to say goodbye to her. Traveling to me is everything it is making memories, creating person connections with total strangers, and being able to change someones life, even if its just painting their house.