Narrative Essay, The change in your life

"The beauty of a place"

It was year 1985; I was living in Poland at that time with my parents and a sister. I was a young, vivacious and ambitious student who had many friends, a busy life and great parents. I loved my city and the people living around me. My plan was to finish college and teach the Polish language. I had a boyfriend. We wanted to get married in a year and planned to live close by my parent’s house. They were getting older and needed my help more often. My life was all planned, and I thought that nothing or nobody in the world could change that. Then I accepted this job opportunity that opened my eyes to new places, new challenges, and I realized I wanted more than just the typical life.
My last year in college I decided to tutor elementary school students, but finding a job was not easy as I thought. I started feeling hopeless, and made a decision to take any work that was offered to me. And just then my father told me about Mr. Todd. Mr. Todd was my father's longtime friend who had come back from South Africa and was looking for help with separating and filing all different pictures from his last trip. Mr. Todd had photographs from around the world. Some of the places I didn't even know existed. The most beautiful pictures were from Adirondack Park in USA.
Mr. Todd was absolutely one of a kind: impulsive and messy but very sweet, patient and possessing a talent for telling stories with incredible graphic details. He wanted to write a book about his experience visiting different countries. My job was to read and rewrite his annotations. After that I was supposed to file everything together with pictures.
It wasn't easy job. There were boxes from his last trip drawn in with pictures and notes from previous trips, and that was where I found this album of a beautiful park with lakes surrounded by forest. The water was clear and crystal, and had luxurious hotels along side. In the background there were great mountains with snow in the peaks. I could feel the chilliness and magnificence caught in the photographs. The trees had gorgeous colors of autumn: green, red, yellow, orange and some silver. That was the most beautiful place I ever seen.
I asked Mr. Todd about this album: "Oh, dear" he said,” These are pictures of Adirondack Park in the northern state of New York. I love this place. I was just thinking about it". Then he started talking to me in his only way about his experience with bears, sleeping in tents, cooking on an open campfire, hiking among streams and meeting many different people living in the wilderness. 'You see it once, and you will never forget it" he said. "Once you fell in love with this place, you will wish to live there forever".
That evening something had changed inside of me. I never thought of departure my country before, never thought of leaving my parents, friends, city and places I loved. But that evening, for the first time in my life, I wished I could experience what that man did. Mr. Todd let me borrow his album. That night I didn't sleep. In the morning I had a plan.
It took me two years to finalize my plan. Times were hard, but Mr. Todd let me keep his album, and every time I felt hopeless, I looked at the pictures. My father never berated me for leaving the country. I also keep in touch with some of my friends from Poland. It's been eighteen years since I took these pictures with, and I never regretted my decision.