G.+Narrative+Essay

Jordan Hoecker 1A “Are everyone’s seat belts on?” “Yes mom.” I said, dreading this eight hour car ride ahead of me. In many people’s life, they are going to go on a car ride and have to sit in traffic at least once. Well this is my biggest fear. It may sound dumb, but I have severe anxiety of being in the car for long periods of time. And to add on to that, sitting in traffic just makes everything so much worse. Every summer my family goes on vacation, and we // have // to drive there. Well, last summer we went to Kentucky to visit my aunt and uncle. The previous two summers I did not go because my anxiety held me back. This year I just had to face it and go. I did not want to miss out on another family vacation. I am glad I went on this trip because I had fun, it was a new experience, and I proved to myself that I could overcome my anxiety. Aidan and Trevor were in the very back row, Nicole and I were in the middle row, and my mom and step dad Randy were in the front seats of our Dodge Durango. It was a really packed car. All of our things were squished into the trunk, or they were sitting on the roof in our storage bag. We had not even been in the car for an hour, and I look up in front of me and see on the big sign “3 mile back up to tunnel” “GREAT!” I am thinking in my head. My anxiety started acting up, and I got all sweaty and light headed. I looked at my mom and rolled my eyes. “Sorry Jordan, I did not know that there was going to be traffic.” My mom said. I am not a negative person, but in this situation, there was nothing to be positive about. My brother Aidan says to me “It is okay sissy. Just put your head back and fall asleep. Or we can play a game. I like playing those.” So we started playing // I SPY. // It was pretty fun. We started thinking of more and more games to play. My mom turned up the radio, and we all started singing along. One hour had passed, then another one, and one more. Randy started getting sleepy, so my mom asked me if I would like to drive. She doesn’t like to drive in the mountains, or through tunnels. I like to drive, and when I drive it takes my mind off of everything but the road. Finally we only had one more hour left. Randy wanted to drive again, because he did not want me driving up steep mountains. I was glad he asked, because I did not want to drive up the mountains either. I was kind of tired, so I put my head down and took a little nap. Next thing I knew my mom was waking me up and we were there! I was so happy to be out of the car. I still had another eight hour car ride back, but that was not for another nine days. So that was the last thing on my mind. When we got to Kentucky it was dark out, so we looked around their new house, and then cooked some dinner. My uncle Casey told us that we had a fun day tomorrow, so we needed to be well rested. I fell asleep early that night. I woke up and my aunt and I took the 4-wheelers out and went riding for a little bit. I got to drive my own because I had ridden one before. We took a trail to the top of a mountain and we saw wild horses. It was amazing. I thought it was the coolest thing, but she gets to see it whenever she wants, so she was not as amused as I was. We came back to the house and ate lunch. My uncle said we were camping out on the mountain that night. I was not too thrilled because I do not like camping. But everything that I had done so far was fun, so I gave it a chance. We took five 4-wheelers and went on a really long ride, until we got to the place we were sleeping. Casey had a huge cooler. We made a fire, and made smores. He brought his guitar; we sat around the fire, sang songs, and enjoyed each other’s company. That night was really fun. We woke up the nest morning, packed our things up, and went back to their house. We all laid out, played in the pool, and cooked some more food on the grill. That is pretty much what my family did for the next week. Tonight was our last night in Kentucky. I was replaying the last eight days in my head and was thinking about how much fun I had. I would have never had this much fun if I would not have came on this trip with my family. Another thing that I would have missed out on is learning how to deal with my anxiety. My family was there for me and supported me through everything. I learned something that really helped me this trip too. My uncle told me that him, and my Aunt Sara use to have anxiety just like me, and they overcame it. Knowing that they did it, just made me more positive about overcoming anxiety. The next morning we got all of our things together and tried to get on the road pretty early so that we were not getting home really late. I said bye to everyone, and got in the car. For the first time in my life, I got in to the car and did not worry about traffic or having an anxiety attack. I did not worry about anything. I had other things to distract me like my phone and my iPod. It was a nice car ride. Everyone talked about how much fun they had, and how they could not wait to go back next year, and I was agreeing with them. Going on this trip to Kentucky made me realize that you really can do anything if you set your mind to it. Although I have anxiety, it is not nearly as bad as it use to be thanks to my family vacation in the summer. I wish that I would have gone on one a lot sooner than now, but it is a great feeling to know that I have overcome something that was holding me back. As I get older it will go away more and more, I just need to keep a positive attitude and not let something like anxiety keep me from doing anything in my life.