I'm not normally like this. I don't spend hours a day reminiscing about a time in my life where I was the most miserable. It's not what a normal person would do. But, ever since I made the trip upstate to Mansfield University, I've had a better understanding of what beauty really is.
It's a three hour drive from my house to Mansfield. A three hour drive I made all by myself. The longest amount of time I've ever spent driving a car. I've been on road trips my entire life. I suppose moving 3 times does that to you. I was born in California, but somehow, I made my way to Pennsylvania with a 2 year pit stop to Washington state (out East you have to make sure to say state or else they will think you are from DC). I was almost 9 years old when I made the 1,000 mile journey from Central Cali to Southern Washington. A 14 hour drive was what I had to look forward to when my family wanted to visit Cali. At 9 years old you don't spend your time focusing on what beauty is around you in the car, just the fact that you have to be in the car for such a long period of time listening to your 3 younger brothers screaming.
Like I said before, I lived in Washington for 2 years. I lived just outside the small town of Toledo. And when I say small, I mean it. There was this one time in 8th grade I had to convince my student teacher that I was from a town smaller than hers. Her town had 1 stoplight. That was it. She didn't think it could get any smaller than that. Little did she know, the town I was from didn't even have a stoplight. I lived probably about 30 minutes from Mt. Saint Helens.
Washington is beautiful. Lots of Green trees. And that's what my 3 hours on Route 6 taught me. I miss Washington. I've spent the past two hours looking at photos on Google images of Washington state scenery, of the place that I never thought I would want to go back to. Those 3 hours all alone in my car taught me what natural beauty really is. And what I know now is that I have a strong desire to visit the place that I was so excited to leave.
