My Fall Break in Greece!!

          The shutter of the camera opens, I look through the lens to see a blurry picture, and I adjust the focus with the zoom in and out buttons of the camera. I see a good picture but it does not look right. I try to adjust the angle then I look through the lens again but it still does not seem right. I move from where I am standing to see if it is just the ambient light and I look through. I almost have it all have to do is change the background and there…perfect. I look through the lens again and I see a clear picture of myself sitting on the shore of Corfu, Greece letting the slight breeze blow through my hair and letting the sun’s gently rays kiss my skin. I sit on that beach and watch the waves move toward me beckoning me to join them then retreat back into their sea home which only reminded me of my own home.  As I look around through the lens, I see the Mediterranean Sea in all its vast glory staring back at me and I think never in a million years would I have thought that I would be standing on a beach looking out onto a sea and not my own ocean. It is standing on this shore that everything hits me all at once. I am here. I have made one of my life long dreams come true. 

I hear the click of the camera meaning the picture is ready to be taken, I press the button, it flashes and I find myself stuck in a moment. When I was sixteen years old walking home from school one day I made a promise to myself and the promise was that I was going to see another country because I wanted to see something other than America. Don’t get me wrong, I love America but it’s not the only thing in this world and I wanted to see something different. I wanted to see a real authentic culture not the ones that had been readapted to suit the American lifestyle. So it was right then and there walking down the street to my house that I decided I was leaving America. I had no idea how I was going to do it but all that I knew is that I was going and nothing was going to stop me.…I change the shutter speed.

The camera readjusts to focus upon a new picture of me walking down marble steps, making sure my I do not slip on my pink toga, as the smell of traditional Greek food hits my nostrils. I can feel my mouth begin to water and my stomach grumble as I walked into the nightclub/serving area. I take a seat amongst friends joining the vast sea of pink togas who are enjoying the pumped up atmosphere. Laughter is coming from every table and I know that I was meant to be here in this moment…the camera goes out of focus.

Then it refocuses on the same image…Maya Angelou once said “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” It was right in this moment sitting at this mahogany table amongst friends that I realized that this was one of those moments that I would never forget. I know that ten years when I looked back at my time in Greece it would be this moment that I remembered because it is in this moment that I felt the most at peace with myself. I had not one thought of worry or fear but just of happiness…The picture develops quickly and the shutter jams for a brief moment.

The picture needs to be readjusted slightly for what I see is not the picture I want to capture. The picture I want to capture is not just of me but of everyone in this moment because moments like this only come once in a lifetime. Life was never meant to be lived in the shadows but it was meant to be lived in the sun. It was my mom who gave me the courage I needed to face different obstacles because she showed me what happens when a person is always leading instead of following. She gave me the opportunity to try things I never even imagined I would be doing and helped me see the person I really was. She is the person who allowed me to take that step in my life to capture this image.

Now, having the camera shutter close only to reopen up upon a new picture with no need to adjust the focus because the focus is right, the moment is right for it is the picture in which my life begins. It is a moment of me walking the Greece shore and being waved at by my friends from the Pink Palace balcony. The image of me on that beach is a picture that was miles away from my old self, miles away from the person who could never face her own picture until now.