Road trip (is your glass half full or empty?)

 

North Dakota, the land of nothingness and cold winters? Is that where I am going to be spending the next four years of my life? Leaving my beautiful mountains, deep blue river, lakes, ocean, and animals in Alaska for an education, Is it worth it? I did not have the best attitude about going to college. Dickinson was not my first choice and when I was looking at schools, I only applied to satisfy my parents. But after doing the math and using the logical side of my brain it really was the best fit for me. I would have my brother at school, and I would be saving a lot of money. I did, however, have my senior trip to look forward to. Originally my senior trip was going to take place in Florida, then it was California then it was Hawaii then it was visiting my brother and grandparents in North Dakota. You can guess it. I also was not happy about that decision made by my parents. I went into all of this with a negative mind set and extremely low expectations. My dad did, however, talk me into doing a road trip from Alaska to Dickinson, North Dakota. The goal was to drive my car down so I could have it at college to get to and from work. This trip did not seem like a fun vacation to me. It was a practical decision to make my life easier, going to a town I had no interest in living in. However, I never expected this trip to change my perspective on my childhood and how I would feel about moving away from home.

     The drive was so beautiful. I have lived in Alaska my entire life, which is full of wildlife, but I have never seen as much wildlife as I did on that trip. Every animal we drove by would always stop; I would name them, and my dad would take a photo. It was such a cool experience to see all these wild animals just being an animal in nature. It was peaceful and reassuring to know that wildlife like I saw still existed. 

      My dad and I had some good talks the first night. We talked about music, and he told me stories about his childhood, and I told him stupid things that I did in high school. He had also told me a story about when my mother was sick that really changed my perspective of her. When I was in high school, I did not always get along with my mom as a teenage girl does. I always thought she cared way too much about my life and what I was doing, I also considered her extremely controlling and overbearing. When I was little, about four or five, my mom got sick and started having seizures. I was little so I did not understand what was happening. All I knew was that I was having a lot of sleepovers at my aunt's house and that my mommy could not drive so auntie had to take me to kindergarten. My mom almost died. I was told that her heart had stopped, and they had to resuscitate her. She lost a huge part of her memory and herself. All this information was known to me prior to speaking to my dad but I never once thought about what he had gone through when she was sick. The image that stuck with me was when he had said “nothing about that experience was more traumatizing than watching your mom cry in the kitchen because she could not remember, and I could not help her. The blood, the hospital, nothing was worse than watching her lose herself.” This changed everything for me, I no longer saw my mom as my mother, but I saw her as a young girl just as lost as I was. You never really see your parents as people until you leave them but that day, I saw my parents as Stacy and Galen not mom and dad. 

       This trip will always be a positive experience for me. I learned so much about my parents and myself. That trip gave me the closure I needed to move on with my life as an adult and grieve my childhood. I also learned to have low expectations and tell yourself everything will work out. It made me excited for college and I decided I was going to give Dickinson a chance. I also decided I was going to have a more positive outlook on all life experiences in the future. I learned that I cannot control everything that happens to me, I can just control how I react to them.