Dear July: 3

Dear July,

Today's post is brought to you by the word: travel. I have had the travel bug for what feels like most of my life. I barely remember my first trip on a plane because I was five and it's just a blur. All I remember is the popping of my ears and everyone clapping when the plan was landing in Dominican Republic. It's one of our superstitions that if you don't clap then you won't have a good trip or something like that. (Weird, right?!) So fast forward and my next trip to D.R was when I was 15 and I remember this one vividly because it was the summer after freshman year of high school. It's one of the summers that I will always remember because I got to see how much we take for granted here. Yes, we have a nice place to stay but the economic disparities are so jarring and you can visually see it from one street to the next. I got to really understand why my parents think the way they do seeing where they were raised.

Moving on, my parents, brother, aunts and grandmother are all officially in Dominican Republic as of today for vacation. This got me thinking about how much we take for granted again. My parents have been going every summer on and off for a couple years and I haven't been back since I was 15. They work hard during the year and know that they will be relaxing when summer comes but one thing I always think about is how they could have used all their money and gone elsewhere. When I asked my mother why this wasn't something they considered, she just said why? They only care about going to their country. I have so many conflicting thoughts about this because now that I've seen just some of a country I'd never even had in my plans to go to (Chile) I want to see so much more now.

The world is full of so many places to see. I love to fly by myself; it's such a different experience to travel alone. You have to be responsible for everything and it feels great to be so independent. To wrap up this long letter, July, as I was stuck on a train full of people this morning on the way to work I just go to thinking about how convenient public transportation is and we take it for granted and complain about it so much. Since I can't fly for a little while, I'm definitely going to take advantage of this big city around me and see so many things I haven't seen. Time to cross some places of my list!

The song that has been on repeat today:
On The Run (Part 2) by Jay-Z & Beyonce 

Sincerely,
Betty :]