The First Time I Felt Free

Every summer of my childhood began the same way—my father loading up the old conversion van in the driveway, the smell of gasoline and hot asphalt in the air.
We’d pack coolers of food, pillows, and enough shrimp chips and mung bean sticky rice to last a cross-country trip. My siblings and I would squeeze into the back seat, our legs tangled, the hum of the van engine settling into a steady drone.
We were “going on vacation,” but I knew the word meant something different in my family.

We didn’t go to Disney World or stay in resorts. We didn’t wander through museums or eat at restaurants we’d never tried before. Our trips were pilgrimages to distant relatives—my dad’s cousin, my dad’s uncle, my dad’s cousin’s second kid who had adult kids of their own.

I never fully understood the family tree, but one thing was clear: they were all elders. And elders, in our culture, had the right to comment on everything about you. And you couldn’t do anything to do about it except take it in.
“How you’ve grown—but you’re getting fatter not taller.”
“Your Vietnamese is terrible. Are you even Vietnamese?”

As a result, I learned to speak as little as possible—just yes please and no thank you—to avoid giving them more material to pick apart.

The Kind of Vacation I Wanted but Never Had

I dreamed of vacations that looked like the ones in the magazines at the grocery store checkout—families in matching T-shirts outside Epcot wearing mouse ears.
I wanted to stay in hotels where I didn’t have to share a bed—or a thin blanket on a hardwood floor—with cousins I barely knew. I wanted mornings that started slow, not with the urgent voices of parents telling us to get ready because we were “going to see so-and-so” in a town I’d never heard of.

But my parents didn’t allow us to spend the night anywhere that wasn’t family. And when you’re always with family, you’re never fully yourself. You’re always being observed, evaluated, corrected.

Even sightseeing was a controlled affair. We’d stop at a landmark, pile out of the van, take a quick picture, then pile back in. There was no wandering, no lingering.
I envied classmates who went on high school overnight trips or studied abroad in college. I wanted that “big trip before the job starts” kind of freedom. Instead, I worked—through school, after school, and every summer in between. My only “travel” was out-of-state internships that paid just enough to get by.

My First Taste of Freedom

Years later, when I finally had the money and the time, I knew I wanted to travel on my own. But my family said it wasn’t safe.
So I compromised—half with a friend in Madrid, and Barcelona, half solo to Malaga and Granada.

The moment I stepped out of the bus in Malaga. I wandered through narrow streets strung with laundry lines, past cafés and met people in different countries that were staying at the same hostel.

For the first time, there was no elder to greet, no itinerary I hadn’t made myself, no obligation to show up at a relative’s house and sit politely while absorbing their critiques.

It was just me. I was on the first of many adventures I would take. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was experiencing an environment where I wasn’t
I walked along the beach at sunset, the sand cool under my feet. I lingered at tapas bars until the waiter learned my name. I took naps in the middle of the afternoon without feeling lazy. I struck up conversations with strangers—people I’d never have to explain to anyone back home.

On my third day, I sat on the shore staying there for hours, watching the waves roll in and out, and felt something loosen inside me.
I wasn’t rushing to the next destination. I wasn’t shrinking myself to avoid judgment. I wasn’t following anyone else’s plan.
I was just… being.

Leaving the Shackles in the Waves

In Málaga, I realized that “vacation” wasn’t about the location—it was about freedom. The kind I had never tasted before.
For the first time in my life, I felt what it was like to wake up and decide for myself what to do. To walk through a city without anyone expecting anything from me. To eat when I was hungry, rest when I was tired, and speak when I wanted to.
I wasn’t a daughter trying to prove she was good enough. I wasn’t the quiet girl in the back of the van. I wasn’t someone’s idea of who I should be.

I was me.

And as the tide swept over my feet, I imagined the waves carrying away pieces of the old rules, the obligations, the endless cycle of judgment. They washed back out to sea, leaving me a little lighter, a little freer.

That was the first time in my life I truly understood what it meant to be free.