On becoming 18…the first time

For me, turing 18 became a long-awaited adventure filled with bad decisions, stupid ideas, unconventional choices, a giant dose of generous support and guidance, and tons of luck.

My first, very unpopular announcement to my parents was that I was going to delay college and travel the world. My second, even less popular announcement was that my first planned trip entailed my friend and me driving her junk heap car to Mexico. This Mexico trip, in a less-than-reliable car (we carried a case of oil in the back seat because it burned oil so badly) completely overshadowed the college thing.

In my memory, things were a little different then. Turning 18 really meant that your parents didn’t have the same say about your life that they did the day before—I’m not sure how true this is today. I remember my parents (and basically everyone else who heard about it) try to reason with me about the folly of my plan, but they could provide little proof beyond opinion. There was this weird air between us, each knowing they couldn’t really forbid me to go. Eventually though, they broke us down and we were on to something else.

We decided instead to go to England. I had relatives there and we would obviously leave the car behind. Our plan was to go for two weeks, but we stayed for three months and it was an amazing adventure. We went without cell phones or credit cards and we spent a lot of time figuring things out and getting lost. I’m not sure we could have managed without the loving support of my relatives. I can say for certain, however, that this trip changed me and likely changed the course of my life in ways a freshman year could not.

-Maureen[/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”20″][social_buttons hide_share_count=”true” facebook=”true” twitter=”true”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”full_width_content” bg_position=”left top” bg_repeat=”no-repeat” bg_color=”#00a6cf” scene_position=”center” text_color=”light” text_align=”left” top_padding=”15″ bottom_padding=”15″][vc_column width=”1/1″ animation=”none” column_padding=”padding-5-percent” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ font_color=”#ffffff”][text-with-icon icon_type=”image_icon” icon=”icon-glass” color=”Accent-Color” icon_image=”3360″]This post is part of d.trio’s 18th birthday celebration and you can be too! Share this post to be automatically entered to win one of many fabulous prizes. Visit our 18th birthday page to find out all the other ways you can get more entries![/text-with-icon][/vc_column][/vc_row]