Its just not what I need right now. I kept pleading to my mom the morning before. All I wanted to do was go on a get-away trip, to lounge by a beach, and party the night away. “Why did I commit to this trip months ago?” was the only thought that kept circulating in my mind all that morning. All I heard about the week leading up to my departure for Spring Break was of DJ line ups, villas, bar nights, and if I got a dollar for every time I heard “EVERYONE is going to be there”…I would be a rich woman. To top it off, all I had to contribute to the Spring Break conversation was that I’d be playing with kids and taking 3 minute showers. So, call me selfish, silly, whatever you would like, but the truth is, I was not a happy camper as I packed my bags for my “mission trip” to Brazil.
…that is until I walked out of the airport in Brazil. Or, maybe it was even when I walked into the airport…I mean even the car ride to the airport was pretty great. It had been so long since I had been forced in a car or a situation with people who I knew little, to nothing about. Yet on this trip I realized I would quickly have to make an effort to get to know these people. A week in a foreign country with a person makes you quickly get past stage one of being an acquaintance, and forces you to really peel through the human layers and figure out who the person really is. With that in mind, the trip began and let me tell you…I was so wrong. This trip was what I needed and more. For one week we learned, experienced, and for the first time for me in many years, I lived life. I had no concept of time, I wasn’t worried about what anyone else was doing (I mean the shirtless man flaunting his big belly across the road really couldn’t be doing anything more fun), and I did things I hadn’t done in years like play card games and ice breakers. When I had heard that this is what we would be doing every night, I was so beyond skeptical. I mean, seriously, who sits around and soberly plays card games anymore?! But, I was beyond surprised at how much I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. It wasn’t about the card games, it was about the fact that 54 people at UVA who were so incredibly different were sitting together, on a roof top at a trade school in Brazil, really really getting to know each other, and bonding beyond the labels that we place on each other at school.
This trip is exactly what I needed in my life, were the first words that came out of my mouth as soon as I turned on my phone for the first time in America. After a week of witnessing what amazing people we have at our school, who have gone through the toughest times in their lives but refuse to let that affect their outer personalities, I realized how blessed I am to be surrounded by amazingly strong people. Playing with the children at the favelas, and being exposed to poverty beyond comprehension, for me, was a moment of humility that I really needed in my life. Everyday I take so much for granted, and everyday I worry so much about what I don’t have. I don’t have a job, I don’t have the money to buy that bag that I really love, and constantly I’m worried about what I’m not doing that everyone else is doing. All these things in life become so incredibly trivial when you play with a kid that is so happy he could bounce to the sky, simply because you were willing to chase after him in a game of tag. We so often forget how important it is to just appreciate the things that we do have right in front of us, because we are so focused on everything we don’t have.
So lessons learned from the most amazing trip of my life (do I sound overly happy about the trip?…Good because I am.) Just live life, and look around for once to realize all the gold in your life is just sitting under all the worries that you have let accumulate for so many years. Just take a second to breathe, dust off the worries, change your rhythm and outlook, and remember that you only get this life once so make sure you get your money’s worth, and enjoy it to the fullest.