Admitting Reality by Libby Scaperotta '23.5

"So Lib, how is living in paradise?"

Asked my friends, my family, and even distant Facebook friends of my mom.

Granted, the photos were pretty insane. But like most forms of social media travel stories, they showed merely a highlight reel.

Travel stories tend to display a seamless transition from home to foreign destination, with unwavering strength from the explorer as they capture the essence of their site. Yet, my expedition last semester was not one of ease or consistent Instagram moments, although it might have seemed like it.

At my departure gate in the Bozeman airport, I sat in the farthest corner I could find. It was completely white outside; a snowstorm that caused numerous near-accidents on my ride to the airport and a short power outage in line at security. I set up my rag-tag pile of winter jackets and bags away from everyone and peeled my two masks down to take quick bites of a stale bagel. The one hour to departure felt like an eternity. I was scared.

I was anxious about landing in a totally foreign place, about how I would get from the airport to my apartment, about how I would go grocery shopping without a car and about nearly every other step involved with setting up a new life. It was a total what am I doing moment. I sat there, bagel in hand, and thought, “Who do I think I am?” I had never really spent any time in the ocean, let alone seen coral in real life. But here I was, hours away from starting work as a coral restoration intern in Hawai‘i.

There was reason to be overwhelmed. The timing of it all was very last minute. Upon leaving school after the fall Covid semester with the overwhelming desire to not do that again, I manically researched other options. I sent out resumés and cover letters to nearly every place with an email address. Dude ranches in Wyoming, coral gardens in French Polynesia, and farms in New Zealand; you name it and they received an email from me.

When I found an internship that specialized in coral restoration in Maunalua Bay on O‘ahu, I crossed my fingers that they might accept me.

And, I got the internship.

Afterwards, I spent the next few evenings pacing around my roommate’s living room in Boulder, scrambling to book flights, find housing, and wrap up all the loose ends involved with sending myself halfway across the world for the next four months.

I found an apartment one week before arriving on the island. I picked myself – a girl from a landlocked state – up and shipped myself off to a teeny island in the middle of the Pacific. My mom sent my “just-incase” bag to meet me there: a carry-on of bikinis and flip-flops I had thrown together a few weeks earlier for the off-chance that I would drop everything and move to Hawai‘i. I stuck my skis in a friend’s car headed back east, and stepped on a flight to Honolulu.

From an outside perspective, it probably did look like I was living in paradise. I mean, it was Hawai‘i. I was right next to the ocean, surfing every day, and hiking insane treks at every opportunity. If I wanted to, I could pretend that I was some sort of fearless, crazy adventurer and write this piece on my exploration of the beautiful island. However, those types of stories fail to acknowledge the reality of a lot of travel.

My time on island wasn’t always spent snorkelling above live reefs, encountering wildlife I’d only ever seen on Animal Planet, or posing in a bathing suit on some beach. Oftentimes, my “travel story” was far from that.

It was breaking down crying on the phone with my mom at five in the morning on the way to work when my moped broke down for the third day in a row. It was working thirty-five hour weeks to support myself, in addition to an internship, which led to its own fair share of breakdowns. It was sometimes the loneliness and adjustment of moving somewhere by yourself. And, it was wondering if I made the wrong decision to leave all my friends behind at school, disrupting my college experience even more than Covid already had.

Travel isn’t always pretty pictures or moments of awe. Often, travel is uncomfortable and intimidating. But, the personal growth that comes out of these types of experiences, the ones where you’re scared shitless, is truly unmatched. I learned a bit about how I wish to spend the rest of my life: sharing joy with others and having a career that never really feels like “work.” Saying “yes” and finding beauty in everything around me. I learned that anxiety and fear do not have to hinder me. Difficulties push us to overcome what is holding us back; these obstacles prove to be fuel for the journey of growing up and learning to become who we are.

So yes, my last semester did include jaw dropping scenery and camping adventures that before I had only dreamt of. And yet, none of those highs would have been possible without the lows. And, I wouldn’t change a thing about it.