On Monday, I wrote about a list of "life-changing" travel destinations and asked you to share yours. I also mentioned that many of you have emailed me over the last year or so to tell me how traveling to this country or that is what helped you overcome so much, ranging from the loss of a spouse, child, or parent to a personal health issue to the simple realization that life is passing you by and you want to do more.
Now, I'd like to share my "life-changing" moment.
I didn't want to go to Costa Rica.
I mean, I wanted to go to Costa Rica — I'd wanted to go all my life — but I didn't want to go in that moment. I was still dealing with the death of my mother and trying to figure out what to do with myself after years of daily caregiving. Tri-weekly trips to a dialysis clinic, countless hospital stays, weekly doctors' visits, surgeries, home health visits, daily vitals checks, coming up with meals, helping with hygiene, running her errands, managing her household — I had to set aside years of my life to take over hers, and I suddenly found myself playing catch-up in that spring of 2023.
I was working seven days a week to make up for all the money I'd lost. I'd wanted to go back to school at the University of Georgia for years, and suddenly, I was taking a full load of classes. I'd acquired numerous animals. I was cleaning out two houses of clutter and selling it at an antique shop. I was gardening. I was trying to get back on a workout plan. I was trying to read all the books that had piled up on my shelves. I barely had time to breathe, much less hop on a plane and go to a foreign country for eight days, but a friend of mine insisted we go. She said it'd be good for me. Little did she know...
My cousin drove me to the airport that day and told me she didn't think I'd get out of the car. But I did. I got on the plane. I flew to Costa Rica. I met my friend at the airport, and we drove to our hotel. For the first few days, it was nice, but all I could think about was what was going on at home. I was literally counting down the hours until I could get back and return to my regularly scheduled life. I missed home. I missed my dog. I missed my dad. I even missed my precalculus classes at UGA.
Three or four days after we got there, my friend had signed us up for an ATV ride into the jungle. It was a three-hour tour to a waterfall and back, and the description made it sound quite leisurely, which was good because I'd never been on an ATV and really had no desire to. I'd witnessed two incidents as a child where they nearly killed people close to me, and I just wanted nothing to do with them. My friend, on the other hand, grew up riding them and had no hesitations at all. "You'll be fine. If you can drive a car, you can do this," I was told.
As it turns out, that was not exactly true. When we arrived at the ATV place, our guides, Juan and Jesse, had us drive up and down the side road next to their office to determine how good we were at it. At one point, Jesse, confused, asked me if I do, indeed, actually know how to drive a car. That probably should have been my first sign to back out, but I didn't want to be a wimp.
The guides did determine that I needed to ride close to them. Our group was to stay in a straight line — it included Jesse and Juan, my friend, another group of three ladies from North Carolina, and me — and I was to ride in the back. For what it's worth, one of the other ladies wasn't that great of a driver either and also required special monitoring.
The ride began pretty smoothly. We drove through the town and eventually crossed over onto a dirt road. That dirt road eventually led us up the side of a mountain, and the further up we got, the steeper, rockier, and narrower it got. One wrong move, and you go off the side of a cliff, I kept telling myself. But after a couple of hours of driving, we finally reached our destination — the top of that mountain — and it rewarded us with gorgeous views of the area below.
But I saw no waterfall. That's when the guides explained that to get to the waterfall, we'd have to take another road deep into the jungle and that it was incredibly dangerous. They told me and the other lady who didn't drive well that they would not allow us to drive ourselves for that reason. They gave the other three women strict instructions on how to make it down. Juan told me I'd have to ride with him.
I'm kind of ashamed to admit it now, but I sat on that vehicle on top of that mountain in Costa Rica and threw what we Southerners would call a "hissy fit." I was already terrified of this whole situation, but now I was going to have to relinquish all control to some guy I'd just met a couple of hours ago? Heck no. That is not in my nature. Through all the years of taking care of my mom and dealing with the medical system and probably even before that for various reasons, I became a very independent person. I do not let other people do things for me. I do not ask for help. I do not even like to let other people drive me in a car. I do not give up my control over a situation. I do not trust other people to handle things competently.
And now this random dude, who barely spoke English and couldn't have been 30 years old, was like, "Yeah, you're going to have to trust me." I said, "Nope. I'm not going. I'll sit here and wait for the rest of you." They said that was not a good idea. I told them I'd walk to the waterfall, and they told me that walking that road was too dangerous and would take too long. I told him I didn't think the vehicle could hold two people, and they laughed at me. I came up with every excuse in the book, and they had an answer for each one. After a while, I had the entire group of people surrounding me, trying to talk me into it. I could have killed my friend. I didn't even want to do this in the first place.
Juan finally took me aside and calmly and sweetly told me that I would be okay, and that he'd made up my mind for me, and that he and I were going to ride to the waterfall together. And with that, he told me to scoot back and wrap my arms around him, and we would be on our way. And we were. And I don't think I've ever prayed so hard in all my life. Juan tried to point out flowers or animals we passed, but I could barely open my eyes. I had a death grip on this poor man as we eased our way down this — I wouldn't even call it a road; it was more like a steep gully. But the further we went, the more I realized that Juan does this every day, knows how to navigate it, and is incredibly skilled at what he does.
When we reached a stopping point, we still didn't see a waterfall, and that's when they informed us that we had to hike to it. There was only one problem: I could barely stand up, I was shaking violently, and I finally understood the phrase "my legs felt like jelly." I wasn't in the best shape at the time anyway, but this just made it worse. The trail to the waterfall was steep, rocky, muddy, and at some points, you had to hold onto ropes to pass parts of it. We all struggled with it, but I think I did the most. Juan eventually took my hand and held it, which I would normally frown upon, because how embarrassing, but I was so grateful for it.
I don't remember a darn thing about that waterfall. While everyone else swam in the water, something I'd been looking forward to (I may not be adventurous on land, but get me in a body of water, and I'll do pretty much anything), I sat on a rock and wondered what the heck I was doing with my life.
My friend eventually pointed out that we were going to have to make our way back up the trail and suggested that she and I get a head start so we could stop and rest along the way. We did, and when we made it back to the place where we'd parked the ATVs, I literally just fell to the ground with exhaustion. I didn't care if sitting on the jungle floor didn't seem like a great idea.
A minute or so later, I heard an animal sound behind me, and I turned around in a panic, but it was just Juan who'd come back to check on us. He laughed but sat down with me, and I can't remember exactly what we talked about, but I remember him asking if I was okay and telling me that he could tell from the beginning I hadn't wanted to do any of this, but he was proud of me for following through.
I realized then that I was kind of proud of myself, too, for doing something very hard. It wasn't necessarily the physical difficulty of all of it, but the mental — relinquishing control to someone else for a few moments, trusting an incredibly kind and competent stranger, and just doing something that was way outside my comfort zone.
When it was time to drive back to their office, I didn't feel so stupid for being scared. Only one of the five women on this trip wanted to actually drive back up the dangerous road by herself. My friend said that even though she was quite skilled at ATV driving, it had terrified her. So, poor Juan and Jesse had to take turns driving each of us back up to the top of the mountain. When we got there, everyone got back on their ATVs but me. I asked the guys if they'd just drive me back all the way to the office. I may have done something brave, but I'd reached my limit for the day.
They laughed, but they did it. Juan joked with me when we got back that he and I were going to have to go get my abandoned ATV. Not a chance. We laughed. We told them goodbye, and we went back to our hotel. We soaked in the pool for a bit — gosh, we were so sore for two days — and that night, my friend and I opted to have dinner at the hotel bar. I still have a vivid memory of sitting there and realizing that this day had been a game-changer for me. During the years I spent caring for my mom and dealing with her death, my world had gotten so small, and I hadn't even realized it.
But suddenly, I was no longer counting down the hours until I could get home. I wanted to see what else that beautiful country and its kind people had to offer. I wanted to let go of everything I tried to control and just... live a little. That's exactly what I did for the last few days of our trip, and that new mindset has led to so many new experiences in the three years since that fateful ATV ride. I began saying yes to meeting new people, yes to traveling solo, yes to exploring places I'd never been, yes to doing new things, and, well, as corny as it sounds, yes to life. No regrets.
