Expectations

I am currently sitting on the airplane on my way to Poland fully rested and so excited for the 2 weeks ahead of me. I arrived at the airport yesterday afternoon and acted as my usual self, outgoing, loud, and ready to make lots of friends during this trip. However, as opposed to most summer programs and conventions, I feel a bit worried about how I'm going to react to this journey.

Since freshman year in GJHRR, the March is simply what you do as an upperclassmen. You constantly have the seniors telling you about how it's the best 2 weeks ever and how it's life changing and what-not. They always explain their journey and how moving it is to walk out of Auschwitz with 10,000 people in blue jackets. I have heard all about how scary it is that Majdanek can be up and running in 48 hours. I have seen the pictures and heard the stories. But there in lies the problem, my expectations. I expect to see certain thing and react in certain ways and I'm scared that maybe I won't. Now I think already about coming home and sharing my experience with people. But I almost don't want to share it with anyone who will be going on the March next year or the year after because I don't like these expectations.

I am working now to clear my mind and forget what I have heard. I am going to make this journey MINE. I usually go into a program like this and care what people think about me. I care how I look and react. Well now I'm not going to. I'm going to try to ignore the expectations that people have for me on how to react. If I don't cry, whatever. If I'm not scared, whatever. And if I do, it's whatever as well.

Well now to what is going on, I'm going to post this when I land safely in Poland. Today is Friday which means it's Shabbat. I love shabbat when I'm in BBYO. Today will definitely be an amazing experience. The flight here was very good. I slept a solid 6 hours and feel ready for the experiences ahead of me. I cannot be more thankful for this trip and for having the opportunity to go on it. I'm going to try not to make these blogs too long because I don't want to spend too much of my time writing them but hopefully I will be able to capture my feeling and emotions here for the next couple weeks and have this to last me a lifetime.
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