I had to wait 25 years for my first holiday.

by Tyrone Goulding (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

A leap into the unknown United Kingdom

As I walked through the airport, the dryness in my eyes where the 7AM alarm had left its mark soon dissipated. Eye lids no longer heavy with fatigue, but years of anticipation, doubt, fear and uncertainty had manifested them self into bittersweet tears cascading down my face. This was so much more than a holiday. This was a resolution, this was justice. I had been waiting for this moment for a long time and the fact that I was standing in an airport ready to go on my first holiday felt very surreal. Everyone has mixed emotions on their first holiday, fear, excitement. I had been waiting for this moment for 25 years. You see I was born and raised in a small town in England called Sheffield. Both my parents were Jamaica born and travelled over here at a very young age where they both had children and eventually met and that’s how I came to fruition. Now this may seem irrelevant in the scheme of this story however it is important as this is what has shaped my travel experience throughout my life. As a second- generation immigrant, I never really thought much about my place or more so citizenship within this country as I was going through the school system much like everyone else. Until one day my mum told me she had booked a holiday for me and my three sisters to Jamaica, as you can imagine I was thrilled with the prospect of two weeks off school and a chance to see my homeland which I had heard so much about. A couple of days before my mother called me in to my room and she looked deeply upset and this one of the first times I had ever seen her like this. “You two won’t be able to come to Jamaica, they (government) won’t give you a passport because they are saying you’re not British citizens. I was baffled, we both were, but my mum still had to go as she had payed for my other sisters to go and it had taken years for her to save up for this holiday as we were a working - class family. It hurt to know that the government had stopped us creating these experiences and precious memories as a family I was too young to really understand why they had but years later it came to light that we had been caught up in what was known as the Windrush scandal. The fore mentioned incident happened when I was 13 and was seldom discussed for years after. With each step through the terminal my heart raced, eyes grew wider as I read every possible sign. The friend from university that I was travelling with was well versed in navigating airports as he had travelled many times. The suitcase handle kept on slipping out of my palms as the sweat mixed with the cocoa butter I had put on that morning made for a great but unwanted lubricant. As we passed the boarding desk, the butterflies in my stomach had been replaced with a Serengeti like stampede and I could now feel the big five trembling through my lower intestines. I wasn’t nervous. It was the opposite; I had waited so long for this moment that the adrenaline of just getting on the plane was enough of an adventure. My internal monologue went crazy and I tried not to reel off all the flight facts I had researched prior to the flight. The flight itself went very quick in comparison to the 25 years I had waited to board it. The destination was Barcelona and we had a full Itenary scheduled. As we landed, I let out possibly the biggest sigh of relief as I had this feeling that maybe I wasn’t ever meant to go on holiday but that was just unnecessary anxious thoughts. As we waited to dis embark the plane, I stared out the window in amazement, a haze from the heat masked the runway making everything seem like a mirage. As I took my first step off the plane on to the steps and I felt the scorching heat, I had arrived.