By Chian-Shin Du
The last time I had seen my cousins was three years before. I couldn’t wait to see them again. I was a little bit nervous, but more excited, like that feeling you have on the first day of school. We were celebrating my birthday. You see, we used to always get together to celebrate our birthdays. This is because Joyce, the oldest cousin, had the same birthday as me: October 9th. However, she is two years older than me. Jonathan, Joyce’s younger brother, is two days older than me, and the youngest, Joanna, was born in December. Because our birthdays are so close, we always go somewhere together. However, because of the pandemic, that tradition was cut off.
I had not had not seen my cousins for over three years before my mom told me that we were going to Denver to see each other. After a quick plane flight, a relatively short night of sleep, and a lot of paranoia about losing something at the airport (specifically my math homework, phone, and stuffed animal), I saw them.
My cousins came knocking on our hotel room, right after we woke up. I opened the door, and Jonathan and Joanna were right there. We welcomed them into our hotel room, and the first remark I made to Jonathan was, “Good. I’m still taller.”
Jonathan looked at me incredulously. “Is that the first thing you say to me after three years?”
“Yep!” I laughed. The tension between us dissolved like cotton candy in my mouth. We quickly started laughing and talking, like we had seen each other only a week ago.
After breakfast, we sipped our hot chocolate and then begged our parents to let us go to the pool. Thankfully, they agreed. We spent that morning in the pool after breakfast, playing Marco Polo and Tag. They also introduced us to the art of doing flips underwater, which was really fun.
After that, we went to a place with lots of birds. Joyce, who was now 14, had gotten a cold and was still feeling a little down. She walked with her parents, as did Rau-Fei, my younger brother. Joanna, Jonathan, Rau-Fei and I complained about being tired and hungry only about 5,000,000,000,000,000 times. Finally, I think our parents got tired of us complaining, so we went to a buffet.
The buffet was beautiful. It had SO. MANY. SWEETS. I will skip all the boring details about healthy foods. Jonathan and I got dessert. After Jonathan ate his ice cream, he decided it would be a great idea to drink his lemonade afterwards- and boom. His face twisted into this hilarious expression because the lemonade tasted so sour after eating such a sweet ice cream. I still have a photo of it. I had jello, ice cream, cake, and cookies. I left the buffet feeling very satisfied.
We then checked into our next hotel, where Jonathan and Joanna once again came to our room to hang out. We played games, talked, and just had fun together. Once that was done, we went on a walk around Denver. We saw a huge big blue bear, some sculptures, and then we went to a playground to play. We had dinner and delicious boba (it was a struggle getting our parents to agree), and headed off towards bed.
The next day, I awoke feeling happy and ready to spend more time with my cousins when it hit me. Today was our last day together. I intended to make the most out of it. I waited for my cousins to FINALLY wake up, and then we had breakfast together. Big bummer: There was no hot chocolate. Even bigger bummer: There was no hot tub with the pool. However, that was alright because we still had tons of fun splashing each other. I discovered that my older cousin, Joyce, was really good at Wordscapes, and that my cousins were not as good at water fighting as I was (just saying).
That day, we went to the zoo. It was fun, but the whole entire time there was this annoying voice in the back of my head saying, Remember that today is the last day.
Shut up, I would say.
You have to use the restroom even though you did that five minutes ago, the voice would say.
And then I would have to use the restroom again. However, then we went to see the lions. To our good fortune, they were feeding the lion bones. There was this one lion who hugged his bone while chewing it. Their face was so happy. Looking at the lion, I realized that he was happy because he was eating a bone. He was enjoying the moment just eating. At that moment, I realized that I could enjoy the moment as well. I could stop worrying myself about when I was going to leave. This moment made the little voice in the back of my head FINALLY shut up.
The day went by. We saw a lot of different and diverse animals. We ate cotton candy and I stole my cousin’s french fries. We went back to our hotel and had fun together, just enjoying each other's company and the little time we had left.
We left the next morning. We rode a shuttle to the airport, and then said goodbye. My trip to Denver was a really fun experience. My cousins and I had tons of fun together. However, this trip was special because I realized what living in the moment truly meant. Living in the moment is to enjoy all the little details of something, and make the most out of a limited amount of time. This helped me become a more mindful person and live my life in the moment most of the time. I’m still practicing, but this was definitely a meaningful experience. Traveling is part of my identity because it is great to see incredible sights with friends and family and creates bonds that can never be broken.
Thank you.
