All my life, I’ve been blessed. However, I haven’t really had the opportunity to travel to very many exotic places. So, the summer before I turned 16, when my parents told me our family was going to take a cruise to Mexico, I was absolutely thrilled!
Throughout the trip, I was able to do an abundance of things I’d never done before, including eating some delicious (sarcasm intended) snail and dance in a dining room filled with hundreds of people. However, on our final day of the trip, before we headed home, we landed in Cozumel, a beautiful city in Mexico. Our plan was to spend the day at an exclusive tourist resort on the beach, and then head back to the ship. What we didn’t plan was that we would end up driving around our rented car for hours looking for this “exclusive” place. Eventually we ended up in the heart of downtown Cozumel, and my view of the world was changed forever.
The first thing I noticed was the men with machine guns on the roofs of buildings and the army tanks roaming the streets. Never in my life had I been somewhere that appeared to be so dangerous; after all, I was a suburban girl born and raised! Even though my parents were worried for our safety, my brothers and I managed to convince them that we should just take a look around. We ended up walking around for hours, and were able to interact with some of the sweetest and most interesting people I’ve ever met. The culture of Cozumel was so beautiful, and as an added bonus, I was able to put my Spanish 1 skills to good use!
So many times in our lives, we tend to put ourselves into a little box, filled with our little lives, and nothing else. Through my accidental encounter in Mexico I was able to break out of my little box, and I’ve learned that I never want to crawl back into it! I’ve changed and matured as a person, and learned that it’s okay to do something that’s scary sometimes! The most beautiful thing about life is that it often has different plans for us, we just have to be open to it and follow where it takes us
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