Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations; and each difficult road I have traveled has turned into its own beautiful destination that has contributed to who I am today.
My name is Lucy Cruz and I am pursuing a B.A in Communications Studies and Spanish at Furman University. I was born in Spartanburg, SC and grew up in El Paso, TX for the first 15 years of my life. Growing up in such a vibrant, cultured, and crowded city that I loved was all I ever knew until I was forced to move to Greenville, SC. Saying goodbye to my family, childhood friends, and the only city I knew was by far the most difficult road I had to take in my life. For the longest time, there was no beautiful destination in sight.
For as long as I can remember, I have always had a special appreciation for nature and sunsets. Half of my camera roll consists of hundreds of pictures of all the places I have traveled, hiked, or watched sunsets and sunrises. Of course, the pictures never do it justice.
When I first moved to Greenville, I had no idea what the place had to offer, so I began exploring. As it turns out, there are countless hidden gems in the Carolinas, and my difficult road began to take a turn for the better. I started working at my first job in sales, driving my first car, making friendships of a lifetime, and traveling. To my surprise, I fell in love with my life and my home. My new life opened up opportunities for me that would not have been available had I stayed in El Paso.
One of those opportunities consisted of hosting German students. My senior year of high school, I was asked if I would be interested in hosting a German exchange student for two months. At the time, I thought it might be too much on my plate to balance school and work, so I declined. A couple weeks later, a peer of mine informed me that my name had been placed on the roster for German hosts, and I was already assigned a student. Four years later, I consider two of those German students to be some of my closest friends, and now I have been to Germany twice to visit them. If my name had never been put on that roster by mistake, I would have never gotten to explore the beautiful Netherlands, west Germany, and met two of my best friends.
After discovering how much the world has to offer outside of El Paso, TX, I make it a point to save up to travel somewhere new every summer. So far, I have taken several road trips to NY, NJ, Maryland, D.C., Florida, California, Georgia, Virginia, NC, SC, NM, Mexico, and Texas. I even have a picture of the sunset for every place I have visited. Of course, El Paso will always be my hometown, it holds a special place in my heart, and I never fail to visit it every year.
What I thought was potentially a “difficult road” ended up being one of the most beautiful destinations of all; and the best part was that the destination wasn’t just one place- it was discovering myself.