Directions Spring 2020

7 CONTINENTS, 1 WHEELCHAIR: MY JOURNEY TO EVERY CONTINENT AS A WHEELCHAIR USER This story is brought to you from

I was six years old, sitting inmy first grade class, and listening tomy teacher, Mrs. Russell, talk about different countries around the world. In the midst of my daydreaming, she mentioned that there are seven continents: NorthAmerica, SouthAmerica, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica. “But nobody goes to Antarctica. It’s just ice,” she said. It may be just ice, but as soon as those words came out of her mouth, it opened up a world of possibilities for me.

I went home and immediately began questioning my mom about the seven continents. She dug out the encyclopedias and that was the day that my life changed forever. That afternoon, I learned that there were animals known as kangaroos in Australia, a huge landmark known as the Eiffel Tower in France, and Antarctica actually had more than just ice. It had a massive amount of whales and penguins also! Before that day, I had no idea that there was even a world beyond my small hometown of LaFayette, Georgia. However, now that I knew, I needed to see it for myself. In that moment, I set a goal to visit all seven continents. As a six year old, I had no idea how it would realistically happen and as I got older, I really had no idea how it would happen as a wheelchair user. I have always known that the road to all seven continents wouldn’t be an easy one, especially with a 350 pound wheelchair attached to my butt, but I maintained my determination. Has it been easy? Definitely not, but it has certainly been worth it. Last week, I returned home from a 22 day cruise around South America andAntarctica, where I finally reachedmy seventh continent. It’s incredibly surreal tome that it finally happened and I’ve been reflecting a lot on how I got to this point and how I accomplishedmy goal of visiting all seven continents. That goal that I set at six years old was finally completed 23 years later.

As many of you know, if you’ve been following me for a while, my mom raised me as a single parent. She struggled to make ends meet as a paraprofessional in an elementary school from the time I was six until I graduated high school, making about $800 per month. Needless to say, we didn’t have money to jet off to Europe in the summers, but we would always go on one or two trips per year. We’d make the nine-hour drive to Orlando and tour timeshares in order to get free tickets toWalt DisneyWorld, we’d have yard sales all summer and go to the beach with the money we made, and we’d explore locally, venturing to nearby cities and attractions for a cheap weekend getaway. She was determined to showme as much as she could, and these experiences undoubt- edly instilled the travel bug inside of me. I didn’t set wheels on another continent until I was 18, but I fully believe that our many trips around the southeastern U.S. fedmy wanderlust and kept the drive inme to continue exploring. At the age of 18, I was preparing to graduate high school. After taking German classes for all four years of high school, I had a strong desire to actually visit Germany. I sent graduation announcements to prettymuch everyone that I’ve ever met and by some miracle, I received over $2,000 from family and friends, along withmany congratulatory cards.With the money, I booked a nine day trip to Germany and Austria as my high school graduation trip. While my fellow classmates were headed to Florida, I was flying to Europe for the first time and I couldn’t have beenmore excited.

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DIRECTIONS | SPRING 2020

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