Why am I going abroad?

I have always loved to travel. New faces, grand adventures, and busy airports excite me. I assumed I would go abroad in college, maybe a semester or two in some country in Europe experimenting with a different language. I never gave going abroad in high school much thought. I mean, most high schoolers aren't allowed to vote, let alone be sent to another country on their own. Yet here I am, months away from boarding a plane to Oman. Though some changes in thought slowly sneak up, gradually coming over you like a wave, this was not one of those revelations. I know without a doubt what caused my sudden desire to go abroad, and not just abroad to Europe, abroad to a whole new culture, religion, and completely different language. I can point to a day, July 15th, 2012, and I can even point to the early evening as the time of my life changing experience.
       July 15th was a day of coincidences and disappointments leading up to something amazing. The morning, like most Vermont days in mid July, was hot and humid with heavy air squeezing the breath out of everyone's lungs. Slowly, as the day progresses grey blue clouds crept across the sky rumbling until they finally burst in the late afternoon. They spewed fat drops of rain, cracks of thunder, and whips of lightning. Looking up at them in annoyance as my friend canceled our plans to go swimming. Then the clouds were gone, receding over the horizon, they left air freshly washed by the rain. Air light and buoyant loosed from the humidity it had held for so long.
       The early evening came along, pushed by the light breeze I decided to drag my bike off the porch and pedal down out cracked pavement road. You should probably know, that I don't remember the next part of this story, I heard a retelling of it later. As I turned on to a dirt road bridge a mile from my house, I lost control of my bicycle. My bike, with me on it, collided with the guardrail flipping me neatly over the edge of the bridge and down onto the bank twenty feet below.
      I am truly thankful that I am alive today, I survived a twenty foot fall with only a broken femur and a concussion. I'm not sure if this is the definition of a near death experience, but it certainly jolted my thought process. I had always expected to wait until after high school for my life to begin. High school is a necessary step before the rest of your life can happen. But this accident made me realize that freak events happen all the time, there is very little we can control about our lives, so why limit our decisions? I decided I wanted to go abroad, I want to travel, and have a host family, and truly experience life, open my mind, and expand my horizons.
      This is how I found YES. I am thankful for that bike, bridge, and thunder storm. Without them I would be dragging my feet through a monotonous senior year living in a small rural Vermont town. Life is so much more than waiting for high school (or anything else to end).