Take a Vacation

I never knew what people meant when they said ‘take a break.’ I never really experienced a break from life itself except for when school was out for the mini-breaks. I worked from sunrise to sunset. Breaks weren’t in my vocabulary.

I’m in my last year of high school. I have so many vacations planned that I never got to experience during high school. Not up until recently.

Spring break was less than a week ago. From January, my mother, sister and I planned a trip just to get away for the weekend. My mother found this nice place in Pennsylvania and on the first Friday of spring break, we were going to head out there. The Thursday before we left, my mother ending up buying a great amount of food to take with us. The amount she bought you would think she was feeding the entire neighborhood. It was a bit too much but it was enough to satisfy everyone.

We cleaned up the entire house spotless and packed our things that night. I remember being in so much pain after coming home from a long day of school just to clean and pack my clothes for the next day. Don’t get me wrong, I was very ecstatic but I was exhausted. The clock struck 1:00 am and we had to be up for 10:00 am. I knew I was going to get much sleep but I was willing to try.

That same morning, I woke up at 10:00 since I was going to get pampered up. My throat started to feel sore and I knew what was coming next. But I didn’t let that stop me. We were going on a mini vacation. There was no reason for me to look a hot mess.

I went into the salon and immediately got seated. Getting my nails done again made me realize how therapeutic it was. It was just relaxing. I knew by then, it was going to be a good trip. I did my nails, feet, and eyebrows. I felt like money after I was done.

When we got back home, we stocked up the car, double checked on everything and headed out on the road. The night before, I was cleaning up so much I didn’t even eat. I kept reminding myself to get something to eat and when I was done, I fell straight to sleep. So we grabbed some food before we started driving. It was a 3 hour drive so we had to get comfy.

We played music, talked and laughed the whole way there. I remember when we started arriving at the destination, it was rather different from what I expected. Wooded area with wild animals just roaming free. As a black person, I’m not very open to woods and what it stands for. But I said to myself,

“Enjoy yourself. You’re away from everyone. This is what you’ve been looking forward to for weeks.”

So I did. We arrived at the house and the driveway made my stomach turn. It was a hill-like driveway and if you didn’t put your car in park, it was going to roll down. Something was telling me I wasn’t going to like this. But hey, I promised to remain positive.

To sum it up, it was a trip I never thought I needed until I arrived. Everything was amazing.

We went to see the movie ‘Little’, I got a henna tattoo for the first time, I went mini-golfing for the first time. It was perfect. It felt good to just let go and have fun. If I had a chance, I would do it all over again. Only thing I would change is more room and a driveway that’s not like a hill.

Moral of this passage, take a trip, let go of your worries. Live your life because tomorrow’s not promised.