This Experience is Mine

December 7, 2008

I can’t believe that it is the 7^th of December!  It seems like only yesterday that I was standing in the airport with 16 strangers.  I thought about running out of the airport and calling my parents to come back and get me.  I could have run and never looked back, but I didn’t.  I got in line and got on that plane.  I took my first brave steps into the world.  Wow, I have never thought that about myself before.  Brave?  Who, me?  I didn’t know that coming to India would take so much courage, but it really does.  I’ve done it.  I’ve proved it to myself and to the rest of the world.  Look at what I can do.  India has scared me and pulled me in so many directions.  It’s hard to believe that I am the same woman who left Minnesota in August.  There were so many times that I considered giving up and going home.  I wanted to prove to myself and everyone else that I could do this, and I really have.  I am so happy that I decided to stick it out in India.  I have learned so much about the world and about myself.  This experience has been so difficult for me and yet I am so happy that I have made it.  I think that I have done more than I ever thought possible.  I don’t think that anyone, other than myself, can really understand how this experience has been for me.  We are getting graded on our participation here and that makes me a little angry because how can anyone judge what I have done here.  No one really knows but me.  No one from this trip really knew me before coming to India so how could they possibly know? 

I have been wondering this a lot lately.  I was so homesick at the beginning of this experience and I was trying to deal with so much in my personal life and that made things so hard for me.  I lost my best friend to suicide 4 months before coming to India and I have spent so much time trying to grieve for that loss.  I feel like some people from the trip don’t understand that I have been going through this the whole time.  It seems like they just want me to forget what is going on in my personal life and just be in this experience.  That’s a lot easier said then done.  That is not something that someone can just get over.  I wish that there was more sensitivity involved when judging me on my personality and experience in India.  I miss my friend so much and it just kills me inside.  So, I’m sorry if that gets in the way of my experience here!