go go go. i've been a go girl for as long as i can remember. i know where i get it from: good ol' mattie g. she was my enabler. my encourager. "linnie, take that girl to disney world!" "sue, amy wants to go to toys r us...you need to take her!" my parents rolled their eyes, but it set a fire in me. i watched her go to the holy land when i was young. i mean, who goes to israel? i had never ever thought of such a thing. i never shared that dream, but i did want to go anywhere and everywhere i could. i know i got it from her.
my earliest memory of having the go bug was just wanting to go go go. "where you going daddy? can i come too?" usually it was met with "i gotta go see a man about a dog." and my response was "REALLY?" of course it was never about a dog. it was usually a trip to the dump. or the store. or to go help a guy wire something or fix something. remember, we oaksvillians are a helpful bunch. nevertheless, i was always down. you never knew if that stop at the store would result in some candy. and the store at that time had penny candy and chewy sweet tarts and i would give my right leg for that. so dad usually let me tag along. i know mama was glad for a break. she was always ready to get a break from me. those that know me well know i'm a lot. i've been a lot for my whole life. that's another story for another post, but it does add some context as to why i was always dad's side kick.
as the certified side kick, the plus one, if you will, i had to be ready for anything. and by anything, that meant ready to go to a softball game or a tournament, ready to make new friends at said field, ready to help carry stuff for the fixit job, ready to sit around and be bored at said fixit job, or ready to help haul trash to the dump. i don't remember ever minding any of that as long as i could go. plus also, remember...there was usually candy of some sort involved.
as i got older, i branched out. i got to go to friend's houses, camps, sleepovers. i was always ready for that invite, either from the friend or from my suggestion. i don't know if i was just always more extroverted than anyone at home, or if i always needed human interaction, or just had more energy and less ability to sit still than anyone in my family or what, but i was always ready to roll. while i never wanted to play sports like my brother and dad, i wanted to be somewhere doing something. the something could be nothing, as long as i wasn't at home.
so once i was older, i got to do some fun things to try to get out the energy and dire need to be with people. mom got me through swim lessons which parlayed into the swim team. if you didn't already know this, i was a chunk of a kid (remember the candy?). while i could float, my swim prowess was pretty lacking. what i didn't have in talent, i did have in effort. i really did try, even if i was terrible at it. i loved being in the water, with kids my age and a bunch that were older, and i loved my swim coach sally. i would have walked over hot coals for her. through swim team, i was able to go to the pool, to swim meets in lynchburg, and i got to hang out with who i deemed to be the coolest people appo had to offer. it was the best three whole summers ever.
if you combined swim team and spennanight, you got....you guessed it....4h camp. that was the pinnacle of elementary school amy fun. i got to go, spennanight, hang out with friends, and DO STUFF? sign my go girl ass up. i went every summer i could possibly go, working my way through all the camps i could. i went until i aged out. i got to visit 4h camps all over the state. i met some friends that i still keep in touch with to this day.
4h camp was the gateway to independence, to wanting to do more, lead more, go more. it gave me my first big trip as a free teenager...to DISNEY. i got the idea from other girls who had been to national 4h congress before me. they got to go to chicago, which seemed cool, but when i heard that 1994 was the year of disney i knew i had to do whatever it took to go. i did the work, submitted the project and won the trip. it was all paid for, minus the extra so we could have an extra day at the parks and spending money. you know who came in clutch for that? you know it was mattie g, bless her. she had always promised me a trip to disney, and she delivered.
i never considered that other people didn't have the same will and want to go go go like me. some people were and still are completely content to be home. i get that more as i've gotten older, but i still have this insane need to see the world. i have this fascination with new places and experiences. i'm blessed to say the least to say that i've done a good amount of traveling. i've seen many states, landscapes, cities, small towns, and several countries. i've eaten the best seafood in fisherman's wharf, biscuits and marmalade in savannah, drank overly strong drinks in vegas, sipped tea and magner's in ireland, and haitian stew in the caribbean. i loved every second, minute, hour of those experiences.
i dream up trips all the time, although the places have changed from when i was younger. when i was a kid, i wanted to go to the far reaches of the earth--asia, africa, brazil. now i want to see more of our great country and see the land. i have no desire to see cities--they are mostly the same everywhere. i want to see mountains, plains, valleys, rivers, bays, oceans. i want to walk under the new river gorge bridge. i want to walk on cannon beach in oregon. i want to hike in zion national park. i want to see free range buffalo in yellowstone. what an adventure any of these would be!
i've curated a list (because of course i have) of places to go. troy and i are checking them off, one by one. we started small, with new places within driving distance. we visited new york state to visit his beloved cooperstown first. i was wary, but grew to love it there. it was gorgeous, much like virginia, the people were great, and to my surprise, it was just what we needed. we've since checked off niagara falls, fallingwater, and asheville. next year we will get to see the pacific northwest which has been on our radar for years. i'm excited to finally see astoria, oregon where they filmed the goonies and i'll get to see the great rock formations at cannon beach. we'll see several national parks and end our trip in seattle with family, the space needle, chihuly's artwork, and copious amounts of starbucks.
my hope is that i've instilled this same sense of curiousity, wonder, and wanderlust in my son. i hope he sees the world in all the ways he wants to. to experience cultures, food, sights, art. it truly is the gateway to becoming a well rounded, interesting, empathetic person. my hope too, is that i can inspire the next generation of kids to have this sense of wanderlust too. i love sharing people, places, and ideas with them. and they are always genuinely interested to see and hear all about places i've seen and experienced.
all of this said, i hope that you, too, tell a kid one day when they ask you where you're going...."i gotta go see a man about a dog" and think about how important tagging along really is. it can be their catalyst to go go go. 💗
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