Thinking about the future (1/19)

It hit me today more than any other day. My time in Israel on this program is coming to an end. I have such mixed feelings about it given all that has happened in the last 4 months. I was excited, nervous, scared, and anxious about coming here on September 13th, knowing full well that it would be the longest time I'd be separated from most of my friends, and more importantly my parents. People here keep asking me, "But don't you go to camp each summer?" and "Didn't you spend a time away at college?" The answers to both of those questions are clearly "yes" but the sheer number of months that I have not seen my parents face to face is far beyond any other time of my life. So that was certainly something that was scary and made me anxious.

On the other hand, I had put off doing this program or something like it for about 2 years. After a few years of working for Hillel and still never having spent significant time here, I really thought hard about it. I decided to do another year of work; then my mom convinced me I should do yet ANOTHER year of work, before hopping on a plane and traveling to the other side of the planet for at least half a year. I knew I wanted to do this. I had built up plenty of anticipation about coming. I set out goals for myself to achieve while I was here. Many of them I am still working on. I'll probably be working on them until the day I leave.

After WUJS is done on February 17th, I am looking forward to spending a week on my own in Israel, and then 2 weeks in mainland Europe, traveling to new countries and new cities along the way, then 2 weeks in the UK visiting all sorts of friends from Echo Lake who are natives or currently there, followed by one more week in Israel before heading back to the states. I have a lot in front of me yet to accomplish. I am setting out to continue to maximize every opportunity that comes my way - trying a new restaurant, participating in a field trip, sitting in a lecture, sleeping in on the weekends, keeping in touch with friends and family around the world, enjoying new friendships I have made, maintaining friendships I already have, learning more and more Hebrew, going running and to the gym, having difficult conversations with people who disagree with me on certain issues, making my way to new parts of Jerusalem, spending time with my family in Israel, taking in every opportunity that comes my way.

Wish me luck!